LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



©i^ap. dnji^tg]^! !fo. 

Shelf ,I?i..l'^,03 



•^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



i835 



THE 



WIT AND WISDOM 

OF 

e! BULWER-LYTTON. 






COMPILED BY 



c."l. bonney. 



''\ /VL-'^ 



-•-♦ .t) ' 



,r\Wj.i.i', 



f 



211^^^' 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER. 

1885. 






V 



COPYBIGHT, 1885 
BY 

JOHN B. ALDEN 



TROWS 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 

NEW YORK. 



ORDER OF WORKS CITED. 



PAGE 

Zanoni 13 

A Strange Story 23 

The Disowned 29 

Devereux 37 

What Will He Do With It 45 

My Novel 59 

Ernest Mai travers ']'] 

Alice, or the Mysteries 85 

Paul Clifford 94 

Eugene Aram loi 

Night and Morning 113 

Godolphin , 1 26 

The Caxtons 135 

The Coming Race 146 

Leila, or the Siege of Granada ; . . 1 50 

The Parisians 1 53 

The Pilgrims of the Rhine 173 

The Ideal World. A Poem 182 

Kenelm Chillingly 185 

Rienzi 190 

Pelham 199 

Lucretia 208 

Last Days of Pompeii 216 

Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings 224 

The Last of the Barons 232 

Calderon, the Courtier 240 

Pausanias the Spartan 242 

Richelieu. A Drama 250 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer was born in Mav, 
1805, and died in London, January 18, 1873. He was the 
youngest son of General Bulwer of Haydon Hall and Wood Bal- 
ling, Norfolk, of an ancient family of Norman origin, whose wife, 
Elizabeth Barbara Lytton, was sole heiress of the Knebworth es- 
tate. General Bulwer died when his son Edward was a child, and 
he was brought up by his mother. Upon her death, in 1844, he 
succeeded to the Knebworth estate, and by royal licence ex- 
changed the surname of Bulwer for that of Bulwer-Lytton. 

He was instructed by private tutors, then entered Trinity Hall, 
Cambridge, "where he graduated in 1826, having in the previous 
year gained the Chancellor's prize for English versification by a 
poem on " Sculpture." 

In 1827 Bulwer married Rosina, a daughter of Mr. Francis 
Wheeler of Limerick. The marriage proved a most unhappy 
one, and a separation occurred in 1836, At the hustings at 
Hertford in 1858, Lady Bulwer appeared, and followed her hus- 
band's speeches of thanks for his election, by a violent harangue 
against him, in consequence of which she was for a short time 
confined in a lunatic asylum. She was a writer of several nov- 
els, and a number of her publications were reflections upon her 
husband and his family. Bulwer's only son, Edward Robert 
Bulwer Lytton (now Earl of Lytton), is an author of note, and 
has been intrusted with several important political missions. 
He has written largely under the nom-de-plume of " Owen Mere- 
dith." 

In 183 1 Mr. Bulwer was returned to the House of Commons 
for the small borough of St. Ives, joining the ranks of the Re- 
formers. When this borough in 1832 was deprived of its repre- 
sentation by the Reform Bill, Bulwer was elected by the city of 
Lincoln which he represented until 1841. His prominent achieve- 
ments at this period were his speeches on the copyright question, 
and his efforts to free newspapers from the stamp duties. He 
published in 1835 ^ political pamphlet entitled "The Crisis," 
which was serviceable to the Whigs, and ran through seven edi- 
tions. In 1838 Bulwer was created a baronet. In June, 1841, and 
again in July, 1847, he was defeated by the conservative candi- 



lo BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

dates for the borough of Lincohi. In the general election of 
1852 he reentered Parliament for the county of Herts, as a Con- 
servative, and supporter of the Earl of Derby. Here he made 
a number of effective speeches, and became a leader of the party. 
He supported in 1855 the repeal of the stamp duty on newspa- 
pers, in opposition to most of his associates. In 1857 at the 
general election, he was again returned as a member for Herts. 
In June, 1858, he became a member of the Derby Cabinet as 
successor to Lord Stanley in the office of Secretary of State for 
the Colonies, resigning this position in June, 1859. On July 14, 
1866, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytion. 

The following is a chronological list of his principal works, 
many of which have been translated into various languages, and 
are now accessible in a uniform edition. 

Weeds and Wild Flow^ers 1826 

O'Neil, or the Rebel. A Poem 1827 

Falkland. His first Novel 1828 

Pel ham 



The Disowned ^ 

Devereux 1829 

Paul Clifford 1830 

The Siamese Twins. A Satirical Poem 183 1 

Eugene Aram 1832 

England and the English 1833 

The Last Days of Pompeii ) ^. 

The Pilgrims of the Rhine ) • • • i»34 

The Student. 

Rienzi, The Last of the Tribunes 1835 

The Duchess de La Valliere 1 

The Lady of Lyons 1 ta o /; 

,-,.,,. ■' V Dramas 18^6 

Richelieu ( ■^ 

Money. A Comedy J 

Athens, its Rise and Fall 1837 

P>nest Maltravers \ ^ « 

Alice, or The Mysteries \ ^ 

Leila, or The Siege of Granada 1840 

Night and Morning 1841 

Zanoni 1842 

The Last of the Barons 1843 

The Confessions of a Water Patient 1845 

Lucretia, or The Children of the Night ^ o ^ 

A Word to the Public. j ^^^^ 

The New Timon. A Poetical Romance 1846 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, ii 

King Arthur. An Epic ) ^ ^ 

Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings ) ^ ^ 

The Caxtons 1850 

A Letter to John Bull 1851 

My Novel 185 1 

Not so Bad as We Seem. A Comedy 1852 

Political and Dramatic Works, 5 vols 1852-54 

What Will He Do With It i860 

A Strange Story 1861 

Caxtoniana (Essays) 1865 

The Odes and Epodes of Horace (Metrical Translation) . 1869 

The Lost Tales of Miletus 1870 

The Coming Race 1872 

The Parisians ) ^ 

Kenelm Chillingly f ^^73 

Pausanias, the Spartan (unfinished.) 1875 

Bulwer seems singularly free from the mean and petty jeal- 
ousy which characterizes many men of letters, speaking of other 
authors with kindness and admiration. And notwithstanding 
adverse and unjust criticism, he is undeniably, if not the greatest 
one of the greatest novelists, not only of the age, but of the 
world. His works show a vast knowledge of human character, 
and marvellous skill in portraying it. Far from being an im- 
moral writer as some of his enemies have alleged, he is entitled 
to rank as a true moralist : presenting vice not to entice or al- 
lure, but to warn, to deepen the horror of guilt and the dread of 
its consequences, and not in a single instance attempting to cre- 
ate for the criminals any interest save that of horror for their 
crimes. 

I may not offer perhaps a better defence of the illustrious au- 
thor's sincere and lofty purpose, than to quote from his essay en- 
titled "A Word to the Public," the following: 

" It is not given to all to have genius — it is given to all to have honesty of 
purpose; an ordinary writer may have this in common with the greatest — 
that he may compose his works with sincere and distinct views of promoting 
truth and administering to knowledge. I claim this intention fearlessly for 
myself. And if, contrary to my most solemn wishes, and my most thoughtful 
designs, any one of my writings can be shown, by dispassionate argument, to 
convey lessons tending to pervert the understanding and confound the eter- 
nal distinction between right and wrong, I will do my best to correct the er- 
ror, by stamping on it my own condemnation, and omitting it from the list 
of those it does not shame me to acknowledge. 

Every reader, who has honored my books with some attention, must long 
since have recognized in their very imperfections as works of art the favorite 
and peculiar studies of their author; some, especially, of the companions of 
my youth, must often have traced to those inquiries, which we pursued to- 



12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 

gether through the labyrinth of metaphysics, and amid the ingenious specu- 
lations of writers who have sought by the analysis of our ideas to arrive at 
the springs of our manifold varieties in conduct, that over-indulgence of 
moralizing deductions, and those often tedious attempts to explain the work- 
ings of mind, which have weakened the effect of my characters, and in- 
terrupted the progress of my plots. But no man can have made the study 
of the great investigators of human conduct his passion and his habit, and 
ever consciously and wilfully meditate a work at variance with morality ; — 
more likely is it that he will err in the opposite extreme, and undertake no 
work, however light, without a purpose too sharply definite. Even in the 
object on which he is most intent, it is true that he may err, — gravest moral- 
ists, the wisest divines, have so erred ; human judgment cannot be infallible: 

' Tacere 
Tutum semper erit.' — 

^if one would be safe, one has no resource but to be silent.' But an error of 
this kind is one only of mistaken, yet honest intention, and may surely be ex- 
posed, without heated invectives and calumnious personalities." 

Callie L. Bonney. 
CHiCAGO,ya;/. 1885. 



WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 



Z A N O N I. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Zanoni, a type of eternal youth. 

Mejnour, a type of eternal age. 

Viola Pisani, prima donna of Naples, and later, wife of Zanoni. 

Clarence Glyndon, a young Englishman of fortune. 

Thomas Mervale, friend to Glyndon. 

Jean Nicot, an infidel French painter, most unscrupulous. 

Prince di , a dissolute nobleman, " capable of every crime." 

Fillide, Italian peasant girl. 
Maximilien Robespierre. 



The Dedicatory Epistle of " Zanoni," which is addressed 
by Bulwer, to his sculptor friend, John Gibson, R.A., concludes 
as follows : — 

" I, Artist in words, dedicate, then, to you, Artist, whose ideas 
speak in marble, this well-loved work of my matured manhood. 
I \(Tve it not the less because it has been little understood and 
superficially judged by the common herd : it was not meant for 
them. I love it not the more because it has found enthusiastic 
favorers amongst the Few. My affection for my work is rooted 
in the solemn and pure delight which it gave me to conceive 
and to perform. If I had graven it on the rocks of a desert, 
this apparition of my own innermost mind, in its least clouded 
moments, would have been to me as dear: And this ought, I 
believe, to be the sentiment with which he whose Art is born of 
faith in the truth and beauty of the principles he seeks to illus- 
trate, should regard his work. Your serener existence, uniform 
and holy, my lot denies — if my heart covets. But our true 
nature is in our thoughts, not our deeds : And therefore, in 
Books — which are his Thoughts — the Author's character lies 
bare to the discerning eye. It is not in the life of cities — in 
the turmoil and the crowd ; it is in the still, the lonely, and 
more sacred life, which for some hours, under every sun, the 



14 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Student lives — (his stolen retreat from the Agora to the Cave), 
that I feel there is between us the bond of that secret sympa- 
thy, that magnetic chain — which unites the Everlasting Broth- 
erhood, of whose being Zanoni is the type." 

WHAT IT IS TO DIE. 

Up from the earth he rose — he hovered over her — a thing 
not of matter — an idea of joy and light ! Behind, Heaven 
opened, deep after deep ; and the Hosts of Beauty were seen, 
rank upon rank afar ; and " Welcome ! " in a myriad melodies, 
broke from your choral multitude, ye People of the Skies — 
" Welcome ! O purified by sacrifice, and immortal only 
through the grave — this it is to die." And radiant amid the 
radiant, the image stretched forth its arms, and murmured to 
the sleeper : " Companion of Eternity ! — this it is to die ! " — 
Book VII. Chap. 17. 

STRUGGLE FOR THE LIGHT. 

Said the cavalier, turning back, and gently laying his hand on 
hers — " And perhaps, before we meet, you may have suffered ; — 
known the first sharp griefs of human life ; — known how little what 
fame can gain, repays what the heart can lose ; but be brave and 
yield not — not even to what may seem the piety of sorrow. Ob- 
serve yon tree in your neighbor's garden. Look how it grows 
up, crooked and distorted. Some wind scattered the germ, from 
which it sprung, in the clefts of the rock ; choked up and walled 
round by crags and buildings, by nature and man, its life has 
been one struggle for the light ; — light which makes to that life, 
the necessity and the principle : you see how it has writhed and 
twisted — how, meeting the barrier in one spot, it has labored 
and worked, stem and branches, towards the clear skies at last. 
What has preserved it through each disfavor of birth and circum- 
stances — why are its leaves as green and fair as those of the vine 
behind you, which, with all its arms, can embrace the open sun- 
shine ? My child, because of the very instinct that impelled the 
struggle — because the labor for the light won to the light at 
length. So with a gallant heart, through every adverse accident 
of sorrow, and of fate, to turn to the sun, to strive for the heaven ; 
this it is that gives knowledge to the strong, and happiness to 
the weak. Ere we meet again, you will turn sad and heavy eyes 
to those quiet boughs, and when you hear the birds sing from 
them, and see the sunshine come aslant from crag and house- 
top to be the playfellow of their leaves, learn the lesson that 
Nature teaches you, and strive through darkness to the light ! " 
— Zanoni to Viola : Book I Chap. 4. 



ZANONI. 



IS 



DEATH DIVIDES NOT THE WISE. 

You observe those two men seated together, conversing ear- 
nestly. Years long have flown away since they met last — at 
least, bodily, and face to face. But if they are sages, thought 
can meet thought, and spirit spirit, though oceans divide the 
forms. Death itself divides not the wise. Thou meetest Plato 
when thine eyes moisten over the Phaedo. May Homer live 
with all men forever ! — Book I. Chap. 5. 

WISDOM CONTEMPLATING MANKIND. 

Wisdom contemplating mankind leads but to the two results 
— compassion or disdain. He who believes in other worlds can 
accustom himself to look on this as the naturalist on the revolu- 
tions of an ant-hill, or of a leaf. What is the Earth to Infinity 
— what its duration to the Eternal ? Oh, how much greater is 
the soul of one man than the vicissitudes of the whole globe ! 
Child of heaven, and heir of Immortality, how far from one star 
hereafter wilt thou look back on the ant-hill and its commotions, 
from Clovis to Robespierre, from Noah to the Final Fire. The 
spirit that can contemplate, that lives only in the intellect, can 
ascend to its star, even from the midst of the burial-ground 
called Earth, and while the sarcophagus called Life immures in 
its clay the Everlasting ! — Book I. Chap. 5, 

WRECKS OF WHAT MAKES LIFE GLORIOUS. 

Broken instrument — broken heart — withered laurel-wreath 1 — 
the setting sun through the vine-clad lattice streamed on all ! 
So smiles the eternal Nature on the wrecks of all that makes 
life glorious ! And not a sun that sets not somewhere on the 
silenced music — on the faded laurel! — On the death of Fisani : 
Book 1. Chap. ^. 

TENDENCY TO BELIEVE. 

Of all the weaknesses which little men rail against, there is 
none that they are more apt to ridicule than the tendency to be- 
lieve. And of all the signs of a corrupt heart and a feeble head, 
the tendency of incredulity is the surest. 

Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny. While 
we hear, every day, the small pretenders to science talk of the 
absurdities of Alchemy and the dream of the Philosopher's Stone, 
a more erudite knowledge is aware that by Alchemists the great- 
est discoveries in science have been made, and much which still 
seems abstruse, had we the key to the mystic phraseology they 
were compelled to adopt, might open the way to yet more noble 
acquisitions. — Book II. Chap. 6 



i6 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

THE IDEAL AND FAITH. 

Oh, when shall men learn, at last, that if the Great Religion 
inculcates so rigidly the necessity of faith, it is not alone 
that faith leads to the world to be ; but that without faith 
there is no excellence in this — faith is something wiser, hap- 
pier, diviner, than we see on earth ! — the Artist calls it the 
Ideal — the Priest Faith. The Ideal and Faith are one and the 
same. Return, O wanderer ! return. Feel what beauty and 
holiness dwelt in the Customary and the Old. Back to thy 
gateway glide, thou Horror ! and calm, on the child-like heart, 
smile again, O azure Heaven, with. thy night and thy morning 
star but as one, though under its double name of Memory and 
Hope \—Book VII. Chap. 9. 

practice squaring with precept. 
" If it were necessary that practice square with precept," 
said Zanoni, with a bitter smile, "our monitors would be but 
few. The conduct of the individual can affect but a small cir- 
cle beyond himself ; the permanent good or evil that he works 
to others lies rather in the sentiments he can diffuse. His acts 
are limited and momentary; his sentiments may pervade the 
universe, and inspire generations till the day of doom. All our 
virtues, all our laws, are drawn from books and maxims, which 
are sentiments, not from deeds. In conduct, Julian had the 
virtues of a Christian, and Constantine the vices of a Pagan. 
The sentiments of Julian reconverted thousands to Paganism ; 
those of Constantine helped, under Heaven's will, to bow to 
Christianity the nations of the earth. In conduct, the humblest 
fisherman on yonder sea, who believes in the miracles of San 
Gennaro, may be a better man than Luther ; to the sentiments 
of Luther the mind of modern Europe is indebted for the noblest 
revolutions it has known. Our opinions, young Englishman, are 
the angel part of us; our acts, the earthly." — Zano7iito Glyndon: 
Book II. Chap. 5. 

the grander art. 
See you not that The Grander Art, whether of poet or of 
painter, ever seeking for the true, abhors the real ; that you 
must seize Nature as her master, not lackey her as her slave ? 
You demand mastery over the past, a conception of the future. 
Has not the Art that is truly noble, for its domain the Future 
and the Past .'' You would conjure the invisible beings to your 
charm : and what is painting but the fixing into substance the 
Invisible t Are you discontented with this world ? This world 
was never meant for genius ! To exist, it must create another. 



ZANONL 17 

What magician can do more ; nay, what science can do as much ? 
There are two avenues from the Httle passions and the drear 
calamities of earth ; both lead to heaven, and away from hell — 
Art and Science. But Art is more god-like than science ; sci- 
ence discovers, art creates. You have faculties that may com- 
mand art; be contented with your lot. The astronomer who 
catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to the universe ; the 
poet can call a universe from the atom ; the chemist may heal 
with his drugs the infirmities of the human form ; the painter, 
or the sculptor, fixes into everlasting youth forms divine, which 
no disease can ravage, and no years impair. — ZaJionito Glyndon: 
Book II. Chap. 7. 

FAITH IN WHAT IS SELF-SACRIFICING. 

You must have a feeling — a faith in whatever is self-sacrificing 
and divine — whether in religion or in art, in glory or in love — or 
Common-sense will reason you out of the sacrifice, and a syllo- 
gism will debase the Divine to an article in the market. — Book 
II. Chap. 9. 

FAITH THE BEAUTY OF THE SOUL. 

" I feel so assured that my very being is become a part of 
thee, that I cannot believe that my life can be separated from 
thine ; and in this conviction I repose, and smile even at thy 
v\^ords and my own fears. Thou art fond of one maxim, which 
thou repeatest in a thousand forms — that the beauty of the soul 
is faith — that as ideal loveliness to the sculptor, faith is to the 
heart — that faith, rightly understood, extends over all the works 
of the Creator, whom we can know but through belief — that it 
embraces a tranquil confidence in ourselves, and a serene 
repose as to our future — that it is the moon-light that sways the 
tides of the human sea. That faith I comprehend now. I 
reject all doubt — all fear. I know that I have inextricably 
linked the whole that makes the inner life to thee : and thou 
canst not tear me from thee, if thou wouldst ! And this change 
from struggle into calm came to me with sleep — a sleep without 
a dream ; but when I woke, it was with a mysterious sense of 
happiness — an indistinct memory of something blessed — as if 
thou hadst cast from afar off a smile upon my slumber. At 
night I was so sad ; not a blossom that had not closed itself up 
as if never more to open to the sun ; and the night itself, in the 
heart as on the earth, has ripened the blossoms into flowers. 
The world is beautiful once more, but beautiful in repose — not 
a breeze stirs thy tree — not a doubt my scull " — Viola to 
Zanorii : Book III Chap. 5. 



1 8 Wir AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

THE IDEAL AND REAL. 

Said Zanoni, with an encouraging smile, " Do you blame 
yourself for the natural and necessary return to earth, in which 
even the most habitual visitor of the Heavens of Invention 
seeks his relaxation and repose ? Man's genius is a bird that 
cannot be always on the wing ; when the craving for the actual 
world is felt, it is a hunger that must be appeased. They who 
command best the ideal, enjoy ever most the real. See the 
true artist, when abroad in men's thoroughfares, ever observant, 
ever diving into the heart, ever alive to the least as to the great- 
est of the complicated truths of existence ; descending to what 
pedants would call the trivial and the frivolous. From every 
mesh in the social web, he can disentangle a grace. And for 
him each airy gossamer floats in the gold of the sunlight. 
Know you not that around the animalcule that sports in the 
water there shines a halo, as around the star that revolves 
in bright pastime through the space ? True art finds beauty 
everywhere. In the street, in the market-place, in the hovel, it 
gathers food for the hive of its thoughts. In the mire of pol- 
itics, Dante and Milton selected pearls for the wreath of song. 
Whoever told you that Raffaelle did not enjoy the life without, 
carrying everywhere with him the one inward idea of beauty 
which attracted and embedded in its own amber every straw 
that the feet of the dull man trampled into mud .'* As some 
lord of the forest wanders abroad for its prey, and scents and 
follows it over plain and hill, through break and jungle, but, 
seizing it at last, bears the quarry to its unwitnessed cave — so 
Genius searches through wood and waste, untiringly and 
eagerly, every sense awake, every nerve strained to speed and 
strength, for the scattered and flying images of matter, that it 
seizes at last with its mighty talons, and bears away with it into 
solitudes no footsteps can invade. Go, seek the world without ; 
it is for art, the inexhaustible pasture-ground and harvest to the 
world within ! " — Book III. Chap. 4. 

MAN ARROGANT IN PROPORTION TO IGNORANCE. 

Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance. Man's 
natural tendency is to egotism. Man, in his infancy of knowl- 
edge, thinks that all creation was formed for him. — Book IV. 
Chap, 4. 

MIRROR OF THE SOUL. 

The mirror of the soul cannot reflect both earth and heaven , 
and the one vanishes from the surface as the other is glassed 
upon its deeps. — Book IV. Chap. 9. 



ZANONI. 19 

ART OF MEDICINE. 

We have, my pupil, no arts by which we can put Death out of 
our option^ or out of the will of Heaven. These walls may 
crush me as I stand. All that we profess to do is but this — to 
find out the secrets of the human frame, to know ^ly the parts 
ossify and the blood stagnates, and to apply contmual prevent- 
ives to the effects of Time. This is not Magic ; it is the Art of 
Medicine rightly understood. In our order we hold most noble 
— first, that knowledge which elevates the intellect ; secondly, 
that which preserves the body. But the mere art (extracted 
from the juices and simples) which recruits the animal vigor and 
arrests the progress of decay, or that more noble secret which 
I will only hint to thee at present, by which heat or caloric, as 
ye call it, being, as Heraclitus wisely taught, the primordial prin- 
ciple of life, can be made its perpetual renovator — these, I say, 
would not suffice for safety. It is ours also to disarm and elude 
the wrath of men, to turn the swords of our foes against each other, 
to glide (if not incorporeal) invisible to eyes over which we can 
throw a mist and darkness. And this some seers have pro- 
fessed to be the virtue of a stone of agate. Abaris placed it in 
his arrow. I will find you an herb in yon valley that will give a 
surer charm than the agate and the arrow. In one word, know 
this, that the humblest and meanest products of Nature are 
those from which the sublimest properties are to be drawn. — 
Mejnour to Glyndon : Book IV. Chap. 2. 

SENSE OF ETERNITY. 

In a moment there often dwells the sense of Eternity ; for 
when profoundly happy, we know that it is impossible to die. 
Whenever the soul feels itself it feels everlasting life ! — Book 
IV. Chap. II. 

FLUID RESEMBLING ELECTRICITY. 

Mejnour professed to find a link between all intellectual 
beings in the existence of a certain all-pervading and invisible 
fluid resembling electricity, yet distinct from the known opera- 
tions of that mysterious agency — a fluid that connected thought 
to thought with the rapidity and precision of the modern tele- 
graph, and the influence of this influence, according to Mej- 
nour, extended to the remotest past — that is to say, whenever 
and wheresoever man had thought. Thus, if the doctrine were 
true, all human knowledge became attainable through a medium 
established between the brain of the individual inquirer and all 
the farthest and obscurest regions in the universe of ideas. — 
Book IV. Chap. 5. 



"20 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER, 

DEATH MAJESTIC AND BEAUTEOUS. 

" Mejnour, I see here, for the first time, how majestic and 
beauteous a thing is Death ! Of what sublime virtues we 
robbed ourselves, when, in the thirst for virtue, we attained the 
art by whlc^ we can refuse to die ! — When in som.e happy- 
clime, where to breathe is to enjoy, the charnel-house swallows 
up the young and fair — when, in the noble pursuit of knowl- 
edge. Death comes to the student, and shuts out the enchanted 
land, which was opening to his gaze, how natural for us to 
desire to live ; how natural to make perpetual life the first 
object of research ! But here, from my tower of time, looking 
over the darksome past, and into the starry future, I learn how 
great hearts feel what sweetness and glory there is to die for 
the things they love ! I saw a father sacrificing himself for his 
son ; he was subjected to charges which a word cf his could 
dispel — he was mistaken for his boy. With what joy he seized 
the error — confessed the noble crimes of valor and fidelity 
which the son had indeed committed — and went to the doom, 
exulting that his death saved the life he had given not in vain ! 
I saw women, young, delicate, in the bloom of their beauty ; 
they had vowed themselves to the cloister. Hands smeared 
with the blood of saints opened the grate that had shut them 
from the world, and bade them go forth, forget their vows, 
forswear the Divine One these daemons would depose, find 
lovers and helpmates, and be free. And some of these young 
hearts had loved, and even, though in struggles, loved yet. 
Did they forswear the vow ? Did they abandon the faith .? 
Did even love allure them ? Mejnour, with one voice, they 
jDreferred to die ! And whence comes this courage ? because 
such hearts live in some 7nore abstract and holier life than their 
own. But to live forever upon this earthy is to live in nothing 
diviner than ourselves. Yes, even amid this gory butcherdom, 
God, the Ever-living, vindicates to man the sanctity of His 
servant, Death ! " — Book VII. Chap, 3. 

THE FATHERLESS THE CARE OF GOD. 

Daylight in the prison. From cell to cell they hurry with 
the news ; crowd upon crowd ; — the joyous captives min- 
gled with the very jailers, who, for fear, would fain seem 
joyous too — they stream through the dens and alleys of the 
grim house they will shortly leave. They burst into a cell, 
forgotten since the previous morning. They found there a 
young female, sitting upon her wretched bed ; her arms crossed 
upon her bosom, her face raised upward ; the eyes unclosed, 
and a smile, of more than serenity — of bliss upon her lips. 



ZANONT. 21 

Even in the riot of their joy, they drew back in astonishment 
and awe. Never had they seen life so beautiful ; and, as they 
crept nearer, and with noiseless feet, they saw that the lips 
breathed not, that the repose was of marble, that the beauty 
and the ecstasy were of death. They gathered round in silence ; 
and lo ! at her feet there was a young infant, who, wakened by 
their tread, looked at them steadfastly, and with its rosy fingers 
played with its dead mother's robe. An orphan there in the 
dungeon vault ! " Poor one ! " said the female (herself a 
parent) — " and they say the father fell yesterday ; and now the 
mother ! Alone in the world, what can be its fate ? " 

The infant smiled fearlessly on the crowd as the woman 
spoke thus. And the old Priest, who stood among them, said, 
gently, " Woman, see ! the orphan smiles ! The Fatherless 

ARE THE CARE OF GOD ! " Book VII. Chap. 1 7. 

LOVE SACRIFICES ALL. 

" Oh, shallow and mean heart of man ! " exclaimed Zanoni, 
with unaccustomed passion and vehemence, " dost thou conceive 
so little of love as not to know that it sacrifices all — love itself 
— for the happiness of the thing it loves ? — Book III. Chap. 4. 

DESTINY LESS INEXORABLE THAN IT APPEARS. 

Young man. Destiny is less inexorable than it appears. The 
resources of the great Ruler of the Universe are not so scanty 
and so stern as to deny to men the divine privilege of Free Will ; 
all of us can carve out our own way, and God can make our very 
contradictions harmonize with His solemn ends. 

FAITH AND PRAYER. 

The despoilers of all that beautifies and hallows life had 
desecrated the altar, and denied the God ! — they had removed 
from the last hour of their victims the Priest, the Scripture, 
and the Cross ! But Faith builds in the dungeon and the 
lazar-house its sublimest shrines ; and up, through roofs of 
stone, that shut out the eye of Heaven, ascends the ladder 
where the angels glide to and fro — Prayer. — Book VII. 
Chap. 16. 

WORDS COMMON PROPERTY. 

Words themselves are the common property of all men ; yet, 
from words themselves, Thou, Architect of Immortalities, pilest 
up temples that shall outlive the Pyramids, and the very leaf of 
the Papyrus becomes a Shinar, stately with towers, round which 
the Deluge of Ages shall roar in vain ! — Book V. Chap. 7. 



22 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

TWOFOLD SHAPE OF LOVE. 

What a twofold shape there is in love ! If we examine it 
coarsely — if we look but on its fleshly ties — its enjoyment of a 
moment — its turbulent fever and its dull reaction, — how strange 
it seems that this passion should be the supreme mover of the 
world ; that it is this which has dictated the greatest sacrifices, 
and influenced all societies and all times ; that to this the 
loftiest and loveliest genius has ever consecrated its devotion ; 
that, but for love, there were no civilization — no music, no poe- 
try, no beauty, no life beyond the brute's. 

But examine it in its heavenlier shape — in its utter abnega- 
tion of self — in its intimate connection with all that is most del- 
icate and subtile in the spirit — its power above all that is sordid 
in existence — its mastery over the idols of the baser worship — 
its ability to create a palace of the cottage, an oasis in the 
desert, a summer in the Iceland — where it breathes, and fertil- 
izes, and glows; and the wonder rather becomes how so few 
regard it in its holiest nature. What the sensual call its enjoy- 
ments, are the least of its joys. True love is less a passion than 
a symbol. — Book IV. Chap. lo. 

TWO WORST FOES. 

Behold the two worst foes — the False Ideal that knows no 
God, and the False Love that burns from the corruption of the 
senses, and takes no lustre from the soul ! — Book VII. Chap. 2. 



A STRANGE STORY. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Dr. Allen Fenwick, the hero of the story, a young physician. 

Lilian Ashleigh, the heroine. 

Julius Faber, a physician of great distinction, and friend to Dr. Fenwick, 

Sir Philip Derval, an explorer in the reahn of magic. 

Margrave, a young man supposed to possess occult powers. 

Mrs. Colonel Poyntz, a social autocrat. 



SANCTITY OF THE SICK-ROOM. 

To the true physician there is an inexpressible sanctity in 
the sick-chamber. At its threshold the more human passions 
quit their hold on his heart. Love there would be profanation. 
Even the grief permitted to others he must put aside. He 
must enter that room — a calm intelligence. He is disabled for 
his mission if he suffer aught to obscure the keen, quiet glance 
of his science. Age or youth, beauty or deformity, innocence 
or guilt, merge their distinctions in one common attribute — 
human suffering appealing to human skill. Woe to the house- 
holds in which the trusted Healer feels not on his conscience 
the solemn obligations of his glorious art. — Book I. Chap, ro. 

DOUBLE MYSTERY OF DIVINITY AND SOUL. 

This idea, so miraculously abstract, of a Power that the infant 
has never seen, that cannot be symbolled forth and explained to 
him by the most erudite sage — a Power, nevertheless, that 
watches over him, and hears him, that sees him, that will carry 
him across the grave, that will enable him to live on forever; — 
this double mystery of a Divinity and of a Soul the infant learns 
with the most facile readiness, at the first glimpse of his reason- 
ing faculty. Before you can teach him a rule in addition, before 
you can venture to drill him into his horn-book, he leaps, with 
one intuitive spring of all his ideas, to the comprehension of 
the truths which are only incomprehensible to blundering sages ! 
And you, as you stand before me, dare not say, " Let the child 
pray for me no more ! '* But will the Creator accept the child's 
prayer for the man who refuses prayer for himself 1 — Book /. 
Chap. 46. 



24 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

RELIGION A BRIDGE. 

What a lovely bridge between old age and childhood is re- 
ligion ! How intuitively the world begins Vvith prayer and wor- 
ship on entering life, and how intuitively on quitting life the old 
man turns back to prayer and worship, putting himself again side 
by side with the infant ! — Book I. Chap. 46. 

EDUCATION FOR HEAVEN. 

But in the trial below, man should recognize education for 
heaven. — Book I. Chap. 46. 

THE SOUL HAS NEED OF REPOSE. 

The soul has need of pauses of repose — intervals of escape, 
not only from the mind. A man of the loftiest intellect will ex- 
perience times when mere intellect not only fatigues him, but 
amidst its most original conceptions, amidst its proudest tri- 
umphs, has a something trite and commonplace compared with 
one of those vague intimations of spiritual destiny which are not 
within the ordinary domain of reason ; and, gazing abstractedly 
into space, will leave suspended some problem of severest 
thought, or uncompleted some golden palace of imperial poetry, 
to indulge in hazy reveries, that do not differ from those of an 
innocent quiet child ! The soul has a long road to travel — from 
time through eternity. It demands its halting hours of contem- 
plation. Contemplation is serene. — Book I. Chap. 48. 

CEREMONIOUS FEE. 

Is there a physician who has not felt at times how that cere- 
monious fee throws him back from the garden-land of humanity 
into the market-place of money — seems to put him out of the 
pale of equal friendship, and say, " True, you have given health 
and life. Adieu ! there, you are paid for it." — Book I. Chap. 10. 

MOCKERY IN FREEDOM. 

Ah ! what mockery there is in that grand word, the world's 
fierce war-cry — Freedom ! Who has not known one period of 
life, and that so solemn that its shadows may rest over all life 
hereafter, when one human creature has over him a sovereignly 
more supreme and absolute than Orient servitude adores in the 
symbols of diadem and sceptre ? What crest so haughty that 
has not bowed before a hand, which could exalt or humble ! 
What heart so dauntless that has not trembled to call forth the 
voice at whose sound open the gates of rapture, of despair ! 
That life alone is free which rules, and suffices for itself. That 
life we forfeit when we love ! — Book I. Chap. 17. 



A STRANGE STORY. 



25 



THE CURRENT OF LIFE. 

The current of our life, indeed, like that of the rivers, is most 
rapid in the midmost channel, where all streams are alike com- 
paratively slow in the depth and along the shores in which each 
life, as each river, has a character peculiar to itself. And hence, 
those who would sail with the tide of the world, as those who 
sail with the tide of a river, hasten to take the middle of the 
stream, as those who sail agaijist the tide are found clinging to 
the shore. — Book I. Chap. 53. 

ATMOSPHERE IN LETTERS. 

There is an atmosphere in the letters of the one we love, 
which \^e alone — we who love — can feel. — Book I. Chap. 38. 

SOUL AND HEREAFTER. 

Soul and Hereafter are the heritage of all men ; the humblest 
journeyman in those streets, the pettiest trader behind those 
counters, has in those beliefs his prerogatives of royalty. You 
would dethrone and embrute the lords of the earth by your the- 
ories. For my part, having given the greater part of my life to 
the study and analysis of facts, I would rather be the author of 
the tritest homily, or the baldest poem, that inculcated that im- 
perishable essence of the soul to which I have neither scalpel 
nor probe, than the founder of the subtlest school, or the framer 
of the loftiest verse, that robbed my fellow-men of their faith in 
a spirit that eludes the dissecting-knife — in a being that escapes 
the grave digger. — Book I. Chap. 46. 

SPECULATIONS ON DEITY. 

What would matter all our speculations on a Deity who would 
cease to exist for us when we are in the grave ? Why mete out, 
like Archytas, the earth and the sea, and number the sands on 
the shore that divides them, if the end of this wisdom be a 
handful of dust sprinkled over a skull ! — Book I. Chap. 46. 

MALIGNITY OF A WRONG WORLD. 

Oh ! the malignity of a wrong world ! oh that strange Just of 
mangling reputations, which seizes on hearts the least, wantonly 
cruel ! Let two idle tongues utter a tale against some third per- 
son, who never offended the babblers, and how the tale spreads, 
like fire, lighted none know how, in the herbage of an American 
prairie ? Who shall put it out ? 

What right have we to pry into the secrets of other men's 
hearths ? True or false, the tale that is gabbled to us what con- 
cern of ours can it be ? I speak not of cases to which the law 



26 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

has been summoned, which law has sifted, on which law has pro- 
nounced. But how, when the law is silent, can we assume its 
verdicts ? How be all judges, where there has been no witness- 
box, no cross-examination, no jury ? Yet, every day we put on 
our ermine, and make ourselves judges — judges sure to con- 
demn, and on what evidence ? That which no court of law will 
receive. Somebody has said something to somebody, which 
somebody repeats to everybody ! — Book I. Chap. 56. 

CONTRADICTION BETWEEN MAN AND AUTHOR. 

How Strange is that contradiction between our being as Man 
and our being as Author ! Take any writer enamored of a 
system — a thousand things may happen to him every day which 
might shake his faith in that system ; and while he moves about 
as mere man, his faith is shaken. But when he settles himself 
back into the phase of his being as author, the mere act of tak- 
ing pen in hand and smoothing the paper before him, restores 
his speculations to their ancient mechanical train. The system — ■ 
the beloved system — re- asserts its tyrannic sway, and he either 
ignores, or moulds into fresh proofs of his theory as author, all 
which, an hour before, had given his theory the lie in his living 
perceptions as man. — Book I. Chap. 74. 

HAPPIEST ART OF INTELLECT. 

Believe me that the happiest art of intellect, however lofty, is 
that which enables it to be cheerfully at home with the Real ! — 
Book I. Chap. 73. 

EVIDENCE OF MAN's SOUL. 

In all those capacities for the reception of impressions from 
external Nature which are given to Man, and not to the brqtes, 
I see the evidence of Man's Soul. I can understand why the 
inferior animal has no capacity to receive the idea of a Deity 
and of worship — simply because the inferior animal, even if 
graciously admitted to a future life, may not therein preserve 
the sense of its identity. I can understand even why that sym- 
pathy with each other which we men possess, and which consti- 
tutes the great virtue we emphatically call Humanity, is not pos- 
sessed by the lesser animals (or, at least, in a very rare and ex- 
ceptional degree) even where they live in communities, like 
beavers, or bees, or ants ; because men are destined to meet, to 
know, and to love each other in the life to come, and the bond 
between the brutes ceases here. — Book I. Chap. 73. 



A STRANGE S7VRV. 27 



MIND NEEDS ACTION. 

The heart loves repose and the soul contemplation, but the 
mind needs action. — Book I. Chap. 60. 

man's will. 

"Man's will," answered Faber, "has over men's deeds and 
reason, habitual and daily power infinitely greater, and, when 
uncounterbalanced, infinitely more dangerous than that which 
superstition exaggerates in magic. Man's will moves a war that 
decimates a race, and leaves behind it calamities little less dire 
than slaughter. Man's will frames, but it also corrupts laws ; 
exalts, but also demoralizes opinion ; sets the world mad with 
fanaticism, as often as it curbs the heart's fierce instincts by the 
wisdom of brother-like mercy. — Book I. Chap. 71. 

MAN WITHOUT FAITH. 

Open biographical volumes wherever you please, and the 
man who has no faith in religion, is a man who has faith in a 
nightmare. — Book I. Chap. 71. 

MAN COGS DICE FOR HIMSELF. 

Man cogs the dice for himself ere he rattles the box for his 
dupes. Was there ever successful impostor who did not begin 
by a fraud on his own understanding ? — Book I. Chap. 77. 

WISDOM THROUGH JOY OR GRIEF. 

Be prepared for either ; wisdom through joy, or wisdom 
through grief. Enough that, looking only through the mechan- 
ism by which this mortal world is impelled and improved, you 
know that cruelty is impossible to wisdom. Even a man, or 
man's law, is never wise but when merciful. But mercy has 
general conditions ; and that which is mercy to the myriads 
may seem hard to the one, and that which seems hard to the 
one in the pang of a moment may be mercy when \dewed by the 
eye that looks on through eternity. — Book I. Chap. 79. 

INSTINCT OF IMMORTALITY. 

"What mourner can be consoled, if the dead die forever.?" 
Through every pulse of my frame throbbed that dread question. 
All Nature around seemed to murmur it. And suddenly, as if 
by a flash from Heaven, the grand truth in Faber's grand rea- 
soning shone on me, and lighted up all, within and without. 
Man alone, of all earthly creatures, asks, '^ Can the Dead die 



28 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

forever ? " and the instinct that urges the question is God's an- 
swer to man ! No instinct is given in vain. 

And, born with the instinct of soul is the instinct that leads 
the soul from the seen to the unseen, from time to eternity, from 
the torrent that foams towards the Ocean of Death, to the 
source of its stream, far aloft from the ocean. — Book I. Chap. 
89, 



THE DISOWNED. 



LEAD.ING CHARACTERS. 

Algernon Mordaunt, the last son of an old and honorable race. 

Clarence Linden, alias Clinton L'Estrange, " The Disowned." 

Lord Bordaile, son and heir of the powerful Earl of Ulswater, and 

brother to Clinton L'Estrange. 
King Cole, a king of the gypsies. 

Mr. Talbot, a vain old bachelor, whose life has been devoted to literature. 
Mr. Brown, an eccentric vendor. 
Mr. and Mrs. Copperas, the former, " a stock-jobber and wit," the latter, 

" a fine lady and sentimentalist." 
Richard Crawford, a commercial man and a villain. 
Wolfe, an erratic would-be political reformer. , 

Warner, a young artist. 

Isabel St. Leger, an orphan, the only child of a captain in the army. 
Lady Flora Ardenne, a young beauty, betrothed to L'Estrange. 



At the time this work was written I was deeply engaged in 
the study of metaphysics and ethics — and out of that study grew 
the character of Algernon Mordaunt. He is represented as a 
type of the Heroism of Christian Philosophy — an union of love 
and knowledge placed in the midst of sorrow, and laboring on 
through the pilgrimage of life, strong in the fortitude that comes 
from belief in Heaven. 

E. B. L. 

May, 1852. 

GENERALLY ESTEEMED. 

There are few men who do not console themselves for not 
being generally loved, if they can reasonably hope that they are 
generally esteemed. — Book I. Chap. 6. 

man's love. 
Man's love, in general, is a selfish and exacting sentiment : it 
demands every sacrifice, and refuses all. But the nature of 
Mordaunt was essentially high and disinterested, and his honor, 
like his love, was not that of the world : it was the ethereal and 
spotless honor of a lofty and generous mind, the honor which 



30 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

custom can neither give nor take away ; and, however impa- 
tiently he bore the deferring of a union in which he deemed that 
he was the only sufferer, he would not have uttered a sigh or 
urged a prayer for that union, could it, in the minutest or re- 
motest degree, have injured or degraded hen 

These are the hearts and natures which make life beautiful ; 
these are the shrines which sanctify love : these are the diviner 
spirits for whom there was kindred and commune with every- 
thing holy and exalted in heaven and earth. For them, Nature 
unfolds her hoarded poetry, and her' hidden spells: for their 
steps are the lonely mountains, and the still woods have a mur- 
mur for their ears : for them there is a strange music in the 
wave, and in the whispers of the light leaves, and rapture in the 
voices of the birds : their souls drink, and are saturated with the 
mysteries of the Universal Spirit, which the philosophy of old 
times believed to be God himself. They look upon the sky with 
a gifted vision, and its dove-like quiet descends and overshad- 
ows their hearts : the Moon and the Night are to them wells of 
Castalian inspiration and golden dreams ; and it was one of 
them who, gazing upon the Evening Star, felt in the mmost 
sanctuary of his soul, its mysterious harmonies with his most 
worshipped hope, his most passionate desire, and dedicated it 
to — Love. — Book I. Chap. 19. 

CHARACTERISTIC OF A VAIN MAN. 

The great characteristic of a vain man, in contradistinction 
to an ambitious man, and his eternal obstacle to a high and 
honorable fame, is this : he requires for any expenditure of 
trouble too speedy a reward ; he cannot wait for years, and 
climb, step by step, to a lofty object : whatever he attempts, he 
must seize at a single grasp. Added to this, he is incapable of 
an exclusive attention to one end ; the universality of his crav- 
ings is not contented unless it devours all ; and thus he is per- 
petually doomed to fritter away his energies by grasping at the 
trifling baubles within his reach, and in gathering the worthless 
fruit, which a single sun can mature. — Book I. Chap. 20. 

EFFECT OF KINDNESS. 

Is there one being, stubborn as the rock to misfortune, whom 
kindness does not affect ? For my part, kindness seems to me 
to come with a double grace and tenderness from the old ; it 
seems in them the hoarded and long-purified benevolence of 
years ; as if it had survived and conquered the baseness and 
selfishness of the ordeal it had passed ; as if the winds, which 
had broken the form, had swept in vain across the heart, and 



THE DISOWNED. 31 

the frosts which had chilled the blood and whitened the thin 
locks, had possessed no power over the warm tide of the affec- 
tions. It is the triumph of nature over art : it is the voice of 
the angel which is yet within us. Nor is this all : the tender- 
ness of age is twice blessed — blessed in its trophies over the 
obduracy of encrusting and withering years ; blessed, because it 
is tinged with the sanctity of the grave — because it tells us that 
the heart will blossom even upon the precincts of the tomb, and 
flatters us with the inviolacy and immortality of love. — Book I. 
Chap. 22. 

ART LOVED FOR ITSELF. 

Art is to be loved for itself — and not for the rewards it may 
bestow upon the Artist. — Book I. Chap. 24. 

THE SERAPH VIRTUE. 

The vilest infamy is not too deep for the Seraph Virtue to 
descend and illumine its abyss ! — Book I. Chap. 14. 

LOVE CLOSER FOR THE DESERT. 

As Faith clings tHe more to the cross of life, while the wastes 
deepen around her steps, and the adders creep forth upon her 
path, so love clasps that which is its hope and comfort the 
closer for the desert which encompasses, and the dangers which 
harass its way. — Book I. Chap. 27. 

EFFECTS OF FAME, 

If the certainty of future fame bore Milton rejoicing through 
his blindness, or cheered Galileo in his dungeon, what stronger 
and holier support shall not be given to him who has loved 
mankind as his brothers, and devoted his labors to their cause ? 
— who has not sought, but relinquished, his own renown ? — who 
has braved the present censures of men for their future benefit, 
and trampled upon glory in the energy of benevolence ? Will 
there not be for him something more powerful than fame to 
comfort his sufferings and to sustain his hopes ? If the wish of 
mere posthumous honor be a feeling rather vain than exalted, 
the love of our race affords us a more rational and noble desire 
of remembrance. Come what will, that love, if it animates our 
toils, and directs our studies, shall, when we are dust, make our 
relics of value, our efforts of avail, and consecrate the desire of 
fame, which were else a passion selfish and impure, by connect- 
ing it with the welfare of ages, and the eternal interest of the 
world and its Creator ! — Book I. Chap. 39. 



32 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

SECLUSION, WHEN JUSTIFIABLE. 

They only are justifiable in seclusion who, like the Greek 
philosophers, make that very seclusion the means of serving 
and enlightening their race — who from their retreats send forth 
their oracles of wisdom, and render the desert which surrounds 
them eloquent with the voice of truth. But remember, Clarence 
(and let my life, useless in itself, have at least this moral), that 
for him who in nowise cultivates his talent for the benefit of 
others ; who is contented with being a good hermit at the ex- 
pense of being a bad citizen ; who looks from his retreat upon a 
life wasted in the difficiles niigce of the most frivolous part of the 
world, nor redeems in the closet the time he has misspent in the 
saloon ; remember, that for him seclusion loses its dignity, phi- 
losophy its comfort, benevolence its hope, and even religion its 
balm. Knowledge, unemployed, may preserve us from vice — 
but knowledge beneficently employed is virtue. Perfect happiness, 
in our present state, is impossible ; for Hobbes says justly, that 
our nature is inseparable from -desires, and that the very word 
desire (the craving for something not possessed) implies that 
our present felicity is not complete. But there is one way of 
attaining what we may term, if not utter, at least mortal happi- 
ness : it is this — a sincere and unrelaxing activity for the happi- 
ness of others. In that one maxim is concentrated whatever is 
noble in morality, sublime in religion, or unanswerable in truth. 
In that pursuit we have all scope for whatever is excellent in 
our hearts, and 7io7ie for the petty passions which our nature is 
heir to. Thus engaged, whatever be our errors, there will be 
nobility, not weakness, in our remorse ; whatever our failure, 
virtue, not selfishness, in our regret; and, in success, vanity it- 
self will become holy and triumph eternal. As astrologers were 
wont to receive upon metals " the benign aspect of the stars, so 
as to detain and fix, as it were, the felicity of that hour which 
would otherwise be volatile and fugitive," even so will that 
success leave imprinted upon our memory a blessing which can- 
not pass away — preserve forever upon our names, as on a sig- 
net, the hallowed influence of the hour in which our great end 
was effected, and treasure up " the relics of heaven " in the sanct- 
uary of a human fame. — Book 1. Chap. 48. 

WHOM FORTUNE BLASTS TO RENDER HOLY. 

There are some whom the lightning of fortune blasts, only to 
render holy. Amidst all that humbles and scathes — amidst all 
that shatters from their life its verdure, smites to the dust the 
pomp and summit of their pride, and in the very heart of exist- 
ence writeth a sudden and " strange defeature," they stand 



THE DISOWNED. 33 

erect, — riven, not uprooted, a monument less of pity than of 
awe ! There are some who pass through the Lazar-house of 
Misery with a step more august than a Caesar's in his hall. The 
very things which seen alone, are despicable and vile, associated 
with them, become almost venerable and divine; and one ray, 
however dim and feeble, of that intense holiness which, in the 
Infant God, shed majesty over the manger and the straw, not 
denied to those who, in the depth of affliction, cherish His pa- 
tient image, flings over the meanest localities of earth an em- 
anation from the glory of Heaven ! — Book I. Chap. 49. 

TEARS, NOT FOR THE DEAD, BUT THEIR SURVIVORS. 

Tears are not for the dead, but their survivors. I would 
rather see thee drop inch by inch into the grave, and smile as I 
beheld it, than save thee for an inheritance of sin. What is 
there in this little and sordid life that we should strive to hold 
it .'' What in this dreadful dream that we should fear to wake ? 
— Book /. Chap. 57. 

VIRTUE HAS RESOURCES IN ITSELF. 

Virtue has resources buried in itself, which we know not, till 
the invading hour calls them from their retreats. Surrounded 
by hosts without, and when Nature itself, turned traitor, is its 
most deadly enemy within ; it assumes a new and a superhu- 
man power, which is greater than Nature itself. Whatever be 
its creed — whatever be its sect — from whatever segment of the 
globe its orisons arise. Virtue is God's empire, and from his 
throne of thrones He will defend it. Though cast into the dis- 
tant earth, and struggling on the dim arena of a human heart, 
all things above are spectators of its conflict, or enlisted in its 
cause. The angels have their charge over it — the banners of 
archangels are on its side, and from sphere to sphere, through 
the illimitable ether, and round the impenetrable darkness at 
the feet of God, its triumph is hymned by harps, which are 
strung to the glories of the Creator ! — Book I. Chap. 57. 

DISAPPOINTMENT IN RETROSPECT. 

There are few persons, however fortunate, who can look 
back to eight years of their life, and not feel somewhat of disap- 
pointment in the retrospect : few persons, whose fortunes the 
world envy, to whom the token of past time, suddenly obtruded 
on their remembrance, does not awaken hopes destroyed, and 
wishes deceived, which that world has never known. We tell 
our triumphs to the crowd, but our own hearts are the sole 
confidants of our sorrows. — Book 1. Chap. 59. 
3 



34 



WIT AND WISDOM OF BU LIVER. 



friends' desire for our happiness. 
All our friends, perhaps, desire our happiness ; but, then, it 
must invariably be in their own way. What a pity that they do 
not employ the same zeal in making us happy in oms ! — Book I. 
Chap. 6i. 

OUR first era of life. 

Our first era of life is under, the influence of the primitive 
feelings : we are pleased, and we laugh ; hurt, and we weep ; 
we vent our little passions the moment they are excited , and 
so much of novelty have w-e \.o perceive., that we have little leisure 
to reflect. By and by, fear teaches us to restrain our feelings : 
when displeased, we seek to revenge the displeasure, and are 
punished ; we find the excess of our joy, our sorrow, our anger, 
alike considered criminal, and chidden into restraint. From 
harshness we become acquainted with deceit : the promise made 
is not fulfilled ; the threat not executed, the fear falsely excited, 
and the hope wilfully disappointed ; we are surrounded by sys- 
tematized delusion, and we imbibe the contagion. 

From being forced into concealing the thoughts which we do 
conceive, we begin to affect those which we do not : so early do 
we learn the two main tasks of life, to Suppress and to Feign, 
that our memory will not carry us beyond that period of artifice 
to a state of nature when the twin principles of veracity and be- 
lief were so strong as to lead the philosophers of a modern 
school into the error of terming them innate. — Book I. Chap. 62. 

ignorance, the cause of errors and vices. 
It is the petty, not the enlarged, mind, which prefers casuistry 
to conviction ; it is the confined and short sight of Ignorance 
which, unable to comprehend the great bearings of truth pries 
only into its narrow and obscure corners, occupying itself in 
scrutinizing the atoms of a part, while the eagle eye of Wisdom 
contemplates, in its widest scale the luminous majesty of the 
whole. Survey our faults, our errors, our vices — fearful and 
fertile field ; trace them to their causes — all those causes re- 
solve themselves into one — Ignorance ! For, as we have al- 
ready seen, that from this source flow the abuses of Religion, 
so, also, from this source flow the abuses of all other blessings 
— of talents, of riches, of power; for we abuse things, either be- 
cause we know not their real use, or because, with an equal 
blindness, we imagine the abuse more adapted to our happiness. 
But as Ignorance, then, is the sole spring of evil — so, as the an- 
tidote to ignorance is Knowledge, it necessarily follows that, 
were we consummate in knowledge, we should be perfect in 



THE DISOWNED. 



35 



good. He therefore who retards the progress of intellect, coun- 
tenances crime — nay, to a state, is the greatest of criminals ; 
while he who circulates that mental light more precious than 
the visual, is the holiest improver, and the surest benefactor of 
his race ! Nor let us believe, with the dupes of a shallow pol- 
icy, that there exists upon the earth one prejudice that can be 
called salutary, or one error beneficial to perpetuate. As the 
petty fish, which is fabled to possess the property of arresting 
the progress of the largest vessel to which it clings, even so may 
a single prejudice, unnoticed or despised, more than the adverse 
blast, or the dead calm, delay the barque of Knowledge in the 
vast sea of Time. — Book I. Chap. 62. 

STEP IN KNOWLEDGE ONE STEP FROM SIN. 

It is true that the sanguineness of philanthropists may have 
carried them too far : it is true (for the experiment has not yet 
been made) that God may have denied to us, in this state, the 
consummation of knowledge, and the consequent perfection in 
good ; but because we cannot be perfect, are we to resolve we 
will be evil ? One step in knowledge is one step from sin ; one 
step from sin is one step nearer to Heaven. Oh ! never let us 
be deluded by those, who, iox political motives, would adulterate 
the divinity of religions truths : never let us believe that our 
Father in Heaven rewards most the one talent unemployed, or 
that prejudice, and indolence, and folly, find the most favor in 
His sight ! The very heathen has bequeathed to us a nobler 
estimate of his nature; and the same sentence which so sub- 
limely declares '^ truth is the body of God," declares also 
"and light is his shadow." — Book I. Chap. 62. 

UPON the death of mordaunt. 
But for Him, the husband and the father, whose trials through 
this wrong world I have portrayed — for him let there be neither 
murmurs at the blindness of Fate, nor sorrow at the darkness 
of his doom. Better that the lofty and bright spirit should pass 
away before the petty business of life had bowed it, or the sor- 
did mist of this low earth breathed a shadow on its lustre ! 
Who would have asked that spirit to have struggled on for years 
in the intrigues — the hopes — the objects of meaner souls? Who 
would have desired that the heavenward and impatient heart 
should have grown inured to the chains and toil of this enslaved 
state, or hardened into the callousness of age t Nor would we 
claim the vulgar pittance of compassion for a lot which is ex- 
alted above regret ! Pity is for our weaknesses — to our weak- 
nesses only be it given. It is the aliment of love — it is the 



36 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

wages of ambition — it is the rightful heritage of error ! But 
why should pity be entertained for the soul which never fell ? — 
for the courage which never quailed? — for the majesty never 
humbled ? — for the wisdom which, from the rough things of the 
common world, raised an empire above earth and destiny? — for 
the stormy life ? — it was a triumph ! — for the early death ? — it 
was immortality ! 

I have stood beside Mordaunt's tomb : his will had directed 
that he should sleep not in the vaults of his haughty line — and 
his last dwelling is surrounded by a green and pleasant spot. 
The trees shadow it like a temple ; and a silver, though fitful 
brook, wails with a constant, yet not ungrateful dirge, at the 
foot of the hill on which the tomb is placed. I have stood there 
in those ardent years when our wishes know no boundary, and 
our ambition no curb ; yet, even then, I would have changed 
my wildest vision of romance for that quiet grave, and the 
dreams of the distant spirit whose relics reposed beneath it. — 
Final Chapter, 



DEVEREUX. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Sir William Devereux, knighted by Charles II. At the date of the 

story "a fine wreck, vain, but good-natured." 
Morton Devereux, ) 

Gerald Devereux, > Nephews of Sir William, 
Aubrey Devereux, ) 
Abbe Montreuil, a designing priest. 
Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke. 

COLLEY ClBBER. 

Steele. 

Swift. 

Addison. 

Fielding. 

Philip of Orleans. 

Louis XIV. 

Peter the Great and Catherine, the Czar and Czarina. 

Bishop of Frejus. 

Richard Cromwell. 

Don Diego D'Alvarez, a Spaniard of high birth. An exile. 

IsoRA, the heroine of the story, daughter to D'Alvarez, and wife to Morton 

Devereux. 
Madame de Maintenon. 
Madame de Balzac. 
Mr. Oswald, a lawyer. 
Mr. Marie Oswald, a valet. 
Desmarais, valet to Morton Devereux, at the same time acting as spy in the 

service of the Abbe. 



DEDICATORY EPISTLE TO JOHN AULDJO, ESQ. 
My DEAR AULDJO : 

Permit me, as a memento of the pleasant hours we passed 
together, and the intimacy we formed, by the winding shores 
and the rosy seas of the old Parthenope, to dedicate to you this 
romance. It was written in, perhaps, the happiest period of 
my literary life — when success began to brighten upon my 
labors, and it seemed to me a fine thing to make a name. Rep- 
utation, like all possessions, fairer in the hope than the reality, 
shone before me, in the gloss of novelty — and I had neither felt 
the envy it excites, the weariness it occasions, nor (worse than 
all) that coarse and painful notoriety, that something between 



38 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

the gossip and the slander, which attends every man whose 
writings become known — surrendering the grateful privacies of 
life to 

" The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day." 

No man, I believe, ever wrote anything really good, who did 
not feel that he had the ability to write something better. Writ- 
ing, after all, is a cold and a coarse interpreter of thought. How 
much of the imagination, — how much of the intellect, evapor- 
ates and is lost while we seek to embody it in words ! — Man 
made language, and God the genius. Nothing short of an 
eternity could enable men to imagine, think, and feel, to ex- 
press all they have imagined, thought and felt. Immortality, 
the spiritual desire, is the intellectual iiecessity. 

In " Devereux," I wished to portray a man flourishing in the 
last century, with the train of mind and sentiment peculiar to 
the present ; — describing a life, and not its dramatic epitome, 
the historical characters introduced are not closely woven with 
the main plot, like those in the fictions of Sir Walter Scott — 
but are rather, like the narrative romances of an earlier school, 
designed to relieve the predominant interest, and give a greater 
air of truth and actuality to the supposed memoir. It is a fic- 
tion which deals less with the picturesque than the real. Of the 
principal character thus introduced (the celebrated and graceful 
but charlatanic, Bolingbroke) I still think that my sketch, upon 
the whole, is substantially just. We must not judge of the poli- 
ticians of one age by the lights of another. Happily we now 
demand in a statesman a desire for other aims than his own 
advancement ; but, at that period, ambition was almost univers- 
ally selfish — the statesman was yet a courtier — a man whose 
very destiny it was to intrigue, to plot, to glitter, to deceive. 
It is in proportion as politics have ceased to be a secret science, 
in proportion as courts are less to be flattered, and tools to be 
managed, that politicians have become useful and honest men : 
and the statesman now directs a people, where once he out- 
witted an ante-chamber. Compare Bolingbroke — not with the 
men and by the rules of this day — but with the men and by the 
rules of the last. He will lose nothing in comparison with a 
Walpole, with a Marlborough on the one side — with an Oxford 
or a Swift upon the other. 

LOVER OF A LADV OF THE MODE. 

It is a charming thing to be the lover of a lady of the mode ! 
One so honored does with his hours as a miser with his guineas, 
viz. : nothing but count them. — Book II. Chap. 2. 



DEVEREUX. 39 

THE GLASS OF LIFE. 

The glass of life is the best book — and one's natural wit, the 
only diamond that can write legibly on it. — Book I. Chap. 2. 

OUR FEELINGS. 

Our feelings, especially in youth, resemble that leaf, which, 
in some old traveller, is described as expanding itself to warmth, 
but, when chilled, not only shrinking and closing, but present- 
ing to the spectator, thorns which had laid concealed upon the 
opposite side of it h^iox^.—Book I. Chap. 2. 

CONSCIOUSNESS OF STRENGTH. 

If ever the consciousness of strength is pleasant, it is when 
we are thought most weak. — Book J. Chap. 2. 

GOOD-BREEDING. 

I learnt that nothing can constitute good-breeding that has not 
good-nature for its foundation. — Book I. Chap. 5. 

LOVE OF KINDRED. 

Ah, earth ! what hast thou more beautiful than the love of 
those whose ties are knit by nature, and whose union seems or- 
dained to begin from the very moment of their birth. — Book I. 
Chap. 7. 

FEELINGS REAL AND PRETENDED. 

Vain hope ! to forget one's real feelings by pretending those 
one never felt. — Book I. Chap. 15. 

FINE SAYINGS. 

" All the world knows. Colonel Cleland, that you are a wit, 
and therefore we take your fine sayings, as we take change 
from an honest tradesman, — rest perfectly saiisfied with the 
coin we get, without paying any attention to it.'' — Book II. Chap. 3. 

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIGION AND PRIESTCRAFT. 

Alas ! when will men perceive the difference between religion 
and priestcraft ? when will they perceive that reason, so far 
from extinguishing religion. by a more gaudy light, sheds on it 
all its lustre ? when will they perceive that nothing contrary to 
sense is pleasing to virtue, and that virtue itself is only valu- 
able because it is the road to happiness ? It is fabled that the 
first legislator of the Peruvians received from the Deity a golden 
rod, with which in his wanderings he was to strike the earth, 



40 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

until in some destined spot the earth entirely absorbed it, and 
there — and there alone — was he to erect a temple to the Divin- 
ity. What is this fable but the cloak of an inestimable moral ? 
Our reason is the rod of gold ; the vast world of truth gives the 
soil, which it is perpetually to sound ; and only where without 
resistance the soil receives the rod which guided and supported 
us, will our altar be sacred and our worship be accepted. — Book 
II, Chap, 9. 

LOVE A DIVISION FROM THE WORLD. 

What is love but a division from the world, and a blending of 
two souls, two immortalities divested of clay and ashes, into 
one ? It is a severing of a thousand ties from whatever is harsh 
and selfish, in order to knit them into a single and sacred 
bond ! Who loves hath attained the anchorite's secret ; and 
the hermitage has become dearer than the world. O respite 
from the toil and the curse of our social and banded state, a little 
interval art thou, suspended between two eternities — the past 
and the future — a star that hovers between the morning and the 
night, sending through the vast abyss one solitary ray from 
heaven, but too far and faint to illumine while it hallows the 
earth. — Book II. Chap. 11. 

HUMAN NATURE A BEAUTIFUL FABRIC. 

After all, human nature is a beautiful fabric ; and even its 
imperfections are not odious to him who has studied the science 
of its architecture, and formed a reverent estimate of its Crea- 
tor. — Book II. Chap. 2. 

INSECTS DANGEROUS. 

The insects we despise as they buzz around us, become 
dangerous when they settle on ourselves and we feel their 
sting ! — Book IV. Chap. 2. 

FEAR INCREASES LOVE. 

It is a noticeable thing how much fear increases love. I 
mean — for the aphorism requires explanation — how much we 
love, in proportion to our fear of losing (or even to our fear of 
injury done to) the beloved object. 'Tis an instance of the re- 
action of the feelings — the love produces the fear, and the fear 
reproduces the love. This is one reason, among many, why 
women love so much more tenderly and anxiously than we do ; 
and it is also one reason among many, why frequent absences 
are, in all stages of love, the most keen exciters of the passion. — 
Book III. Chap. 2. 



DEVEKEUX. 



41 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN POLITICS AND POLICY. 

Ah, there is a nice distinction between politics and policy, 
and Madame de Balzac knew it. The distinction is this : Poli- 
tics is the art of being wise for others ! Policy is the art of 
being wise for one's self. — Book IV. Chap, 4. 

AFFLICTION THE EBON-GATE. 

A re-entrance into life through the ebon-gate, affliction. — 
Book IV. Chap. I. 

A MEETING OF WITS. 

A meeting of wits — Conversation gone out to supper in her 
dress of velvet and jewels. — Book IV. Chap. 5. 

MAN HIS OWN SHARPER AND BUBBLE. 

Man is at once his own sharper and his own bubble. We 
make vast promises to ourselves, and a passion, an example, 
sweeps even the remembrance of those promises from our 
minds. One is too apt to believe men hypocrites, if their con- 
duct squares not with their sentiments, but perhaps no vice is 
more rare, for no task is more difficult, than systematic hypocrisy : 
and the same susceptibility which exposes men to be easily im- 
pressed by the allurements of vice, renders them at heart most 
struck by the loveliness of virtue. Thus, their language and 
their hearts worship the divinity of the latter, while their conduct 
strays the most erringly towards the false shrines over which 
the former presides. Yes ! I have never been blind to the sur- 
passing excellence of good. The still sweet whispers of virtue 
have been heard, even when the storm has been loudest, and 
the bark of reason been driven the most impetuously over the 
waves : and at this moment, I am impressed with a foreboding, 
that sooner or later, the whispers will not only be heard, but 
their suggestion be obeyed ; and that far from courts and in- 
trigues, from dissipation and ambition, I shall learn, in retire- 
ment, the true principles of wisdom, and the real objects of 
life. — Thus did Bolingbroke converse. — Book IV. Chap. 11. 

PETER THE GREAT. 

Pattern and teacher of kings, if each country had produced 
one such ruler as you, either all mankind would now be con- 
tented with despotism, or all mankind would be />'<?(?. O ! when 
kings have only to be good, to be kept forever in our hearts and 
souls as the gods and benefactors of the earth, by what mon- 
strous fatality have they been so blind to their fame 1 When 
we remember the millions, the generations, they can degrade, 



42 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

destroy, elevate, or save, we might almost think — even if the 
other riddles of the present existence did not require a future 
existence to solve them — we might almost think an hereafter 
necessary, were it but for the sole purpose of requiting the 
virtues of princes, or their sins. — Book V. Chap, 4. 

CHARITY DIVINE MERCY. 

At this moment I am, in the strictest acceptation of the words, 
a believer and a Christian. I have neither anxiety nor doubt 
upon the noblest and the most comforting of all creeds, and I 
am grateful, among the other blessings which faith has brought 
nie — I am grateful that it has brought me Charity! Dark 
to all human beings was Bezoni's doctrine — dark, above all, to 
those who have mourned on earth — so withering to all the hopes 
which cling the most enduringly to the heart, was his unhappy 
creed — that he who knows how inseparably, though insensibly, 
our moral legislation is woven with our supposed self-interest, 
will scarcely marvel at, even while he condemns, the unwise and 
unholy persecution which that creed universally, sustains ! 
Many a most wretched hour, many a pang of agony and despair, 
did those doctrines inflict upon myself ; but I know that the in- 
tention of Bezoni was benevolence, and that the practice of his 
life was virtue : and while my reason tells me that God will not 
punish the reluctant and involuntary error of one to whom all 
God's creatures were so dear, my religion bids me hope that I 
shall meet him in that world where no error is, and where the 
Great Spirit to whom all human passions are unknown avenges 
the momentary doubt of His justice by a proof of the infinity of 
His mercy. — Book V. Chap. 6. 

DAWN OF IMMORTALITY. 

Never shall I forget the rapture with which I hailed the light 
that dawned upon me at last ! Never shall I forget the suffo- 
cation — the full — the ecstatic joy, with which I saw the might- 
iest of all human hopes accomplished ; and felt, as if an angel 
spoke, that there is a life beyond the grave ! Tell me not of 
the pride of ambition — tell me not of the triumphs of science : 
never had ambition so lofty an end as the search after immor- 
tality ! never had science so sublime a triumph as the convic- 
tion that immortality will be gained ! I had been at my task 
the whole night, — pale alchymist, seeking from meaner truths to 
exact the greatest of all ! At the first hour of day, lo ! the gold 
was there : the labor, for which I would have relinquished life, 
was accomplished ; the dove descended upon the waters of my 
soul. I fled from the house. I was possessed as with a spirit. 



DEVEREUX. 



43 



I ascended a hill, which looked for leagues over the sleeping 
valley. A gray mist hiing around me like a veil ; I paused, and 
the great sun broke slowly forth ; I gazed upon its majesty, and 
my heart swelled. " So rises the soul," I said, " from the 
vapors of this dull being ; but the soul waneth not, neither 
setteth it, nor knoweth it any night, save that from which it 
dawneth ! '' — The mists rolled gradually away, the sunshine 
deepened, and the face of nature lay in smiles, yet silently, 
before me. It lay before me, a scene that I had often witnessed, 
and hailed, and worshipped ; but it was not the same : a glory 
had passed over it ; it was steeped in a beauty and a holiness, 
in which neither youth, nor poetry, nor even love, had ever 
robed it before ! The change which the earth had undergone 
was like that of some being w^e have loved — when death is past, 
and from a mortal it becomes an angel ! — Book VI. Chap. 2. 

STRONGEST PRINCIPLES BORN FROM WEAKNESS. 

I spent the day upon the hills. It was evening when I re- 
turned. I lingered by the old fountain, and saw the stars rise, 
and tremble, one by one, upon the wave. The hour was that 
which Isora had loved the best, and that which the love of her 
had consecrated the most to me. And never, O never, did it 
sink into my heart with a deeper sweetness, or a more soothing 
balm. I had once more knit my soul to Isora's : I could once 
more look from the toiling and the dim earth, and forget that 
Isora had left me, in dreaming of our r-e-union. Blame me not, 
you who indulge in a religious hope more severe and more sub- 
lime — you who miss no footstep from the earth, nor pine for a 
voice that your human wanderings can hear no more — blame me 
not, you whose pulses beat not for the wild love of the created, 
but whose spirit languishes only for a nearer commune with the 
Creator — blame me not too harshly for my mortal wishes, nor 
think that my faith was the less sincere because it was tinted in 
the most unchanging dyes of the human heart, and indissolubly 
woven with the memory of the dead ! Often from our weakness 
our strongest principles of conduct are born ; and from the 
acorn, which a breeze has wafted, springs the oak which defies 
the storm. — JSook VI. Chap. 2. 

USE OF KNOWLEDGE. 

"For my part, I think the use of knowledge is to make us 
happier. I would compare the mind to the beautiful statue of 
Love by Praxiteles — when its eyes were bandaged, the counte- 
nance seemed grave and sad, but the moment you removed the 



44 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

bandage, the most serene and enchanting smile diffused itself 
over the whole face." 

So passed the morning, till the hour of dinner, and this repast 
was served wilh an elegance and a luxury which the sons of 
Apollo seldom command. As the evening closed, our conver- 
sation fell upon friendship, and the increasing disposition toward 
it which comes with increasing years. " Whilst my mind," said 
Bolingbroke, " shrinks more and more from the world, and feels 
in itsindependence less yearning to external objects, the ideas 
of friendship return oftener : they busy me, they warm me 
more. Is it that we grow more tender as the moment of our great 
separation approaches ? or is that they who are to live together 
in another state (for friendship exists not but for the good) begin 
to feel more strongly that divine sympathy which is to be the 
great bond of their future society ? " — Book VI. Chap, 6. 

BENEFITS OF EXPERIENCE. 

Here, then, at the age of thirty-four I conclude the history of 
my life. Whether in the star, which, as I now write, shines in 
upon me, and which a romance, still unsubdued, has often 
dreamt to be the bright prophet of my fate, something of future 
adventure, suffering, or excitation, is yet predestined to me ; or 
whether life will muse itself away in the solitudes which sur- 
round the home of my past childhood, and the scene of my 
present retreat, creates within me but slight food for anticipa- 
tion or conjecture. I have exhausted the sources of those feel- 
ings which flow, whether through the channels of anxiety or of 
hope, toward the future ; and the restlessness of my manhood, 
having attained its last object, has done the labor of time, and 
bequeathed me the indifference of age. 

If love exists for me no more, I know well that the memory 
of that which has been, is to me far more than a living love is 
to others ; and, perhaps, there is no passion so full of tender, 
of soft, and of hallowing associations, as the love which is 
stamped by death. If I have borne much, and my spirit has 
worked out its earthly end in travail and in tears, yet I would 
not forego the lessons which my life has bequeathed me, even 
though they be deeply blended with sadness and regret. No ! 
were I asked what best dignifies the present, and consecrates 
the past; what enables us alone to draw a just moral from the 
tale of life ; what sheds the purest light upon our reason ; what 
gives the firmest strength to our religion ; and, whether our re- 
maining years pass in seclusion or in action, is best fitted to 
soften the heart to man, and elevate the soul to God, I would 
answer with Lassus, it is " Experience ! " — Final Chapter. 



WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Lionel Haughton, an ambitious young Englishman. 

Frank Vance, an artist, friend to Lionel. 

Guy Darrell, of high birth and senatorial fame. At date of story a child- 
less widower. 

George Morley, a young clergyman, related to I^ady Montfort. 

Col. Ali?an Morley, intimate friend of Guy Darrell. 

Mr. Fairthorn, secretary to Guy Darrell. 

Gentleman Waife, alias William Losely, transported for a felony 
committed by his son Jasper. 

Jasper Losely, an unscrupulous adventurer. Married Darrell's daughter 
Matilda. 

Mr. Rugge, manager of a small theatre. 

Lady Montfort, nee Caroline Lindsey, the early love of Guy Darrell. 

Sophy, the heroine, supposed to be the daughter of Jasper Losely, in re- 
ality the child of Vance's sister, Mrs. Branthwaite. 

Mrs. Arabella Crane, nee Fossett, in early life governess to Matilda 
Darrell. 



BEWARE OF PARTING. 

There is one warning lesson in life which few of us have not 
received, and no book that I can call to memory has noted 
down with an adequate emphasis. It is this, " Beware of part- 
ing ! " The true sadness is not in the pain of the parting, it is 
in tlie Wlien and the How you are to meet again with the face 
about to vanish from your view! From the passionate farewell 
to the woman who has your heart in her keeping, to the cordial 
good-by exchanged with pleasant companions at a watering- 
place, a country-house, or the close of a festive day's blithe and 
careless excursion — a cord, stronger or weaker, is snapped 
asunder in every parting, and Time's busy fingers are not prac- 
tised in re-splicing broken ties. Meet again you may : will it 
be in the same way ? — with the same sympathies t — with the 
same sentiments t Will the souls, hurrying on in diverse paths, 
unite once more, as if the interval had Joeen a dream ? Rarely, 
rarely ! Have you not, after even a year, even a month's 
absence, returned to the same place, found the same groups re- 
assembled, and yet sighed to yourself, " But where is the charm 
that once breathed from the spot, and once smiled from the 



46 WIT AND WISDOM OF BUL WER. 

faces ? " A poet has said — " Eternity itself cannot restore the 
loss struck from the minute." Are you happy in the spot on 
which you tarry with the persons whose voices are now melo- 
dious to your ear ? — beware of parting ; or, if part you must, 
say not in insolent defiance to Time and Destiny — "What mat- 
ters ? — we shall soon meet again." — Book I. Chap. i8. 

POVERTY BETTER THAN SOILING OF HONOR. 

Better a million times enter life as a penniless gentleman, 
who must work his way up like a man, than as one who creeps 
on his knees into fortune, shaming birthright of gentleman, or 
soiling honor of man. Therefore, taking into account the 
poor cousin's vigilant pride on the qui vive for offence, and the 
rich cousin's temper (as judged by his letters) rude enough to 
present it, we must own that if Lionel Haughton has at this 
moment what is commonly called " a chance," the question as 
yet is not, what is that chance, but what will he do with it? 
And as the reader advances in this history, he will acknowledge 
that there are few questions in this world so frequently agitated, 
to which the solution is more important to each puzzled mortal, 
than that upon which starts every sage's discovery, every nov- 
elist's plot — that which applies to man's life, from its first 
sleep in the cradle, "What will he do with it.?" — Book I. 
Chap. 18. 

CHARM OF human FACES. 

There are living human faces which, independently of mere 
physical beauty, charm and enthrall us more than the most per- 
fect lineaments which Greek sculptor ever lent to a marble 
face : there are keynotes in the thrilling human voice, simply 
uttered, which can haunt the heart, rouse the passions, lull 
rampant multitudes, shake into dust the thrones of guarded 
kings, and effect more wonders than ever yet have been wrought 
by the most artful chorus or the deftest quill. — Book II. 
Chap. 2. 

livery of unvarying gloom. 

It is only in the poetry of young gentlemen, or the prose of 
lady novelists, that a man in good health, and of sound intel- 
lect, wears the livery of unvarying gloom. However great his 
causes of sorrow, he does not forever parade its ostentatious 
mourning, nor follow the hearse of his hopes with the long face 
of an undertaker. He will still have his gleams of cheerfulness 
— his moments of good-humor. The old smile will sometimes 
light the eye, and awake the old playfulness of the lip. But 



WHA T WILL HE DO WITH IT. 47 

what a great and critical sorrow does leave behind is often far 
worse than the sorrow itself has been. It is a change in the 
inner man, which strands him, as Guy Darrell seemed stranded, 
upon the shoal of the Present ; which, the more he strive man- 
fully to bear his burden, warns him the more from dwelling on 
the Past ; and the more impressively it enforce the lesson of 
, the vanity of human wishes, strikes the more from his reckon- 
ing illusive hopes in the Future. Thus out of our threefold ex- 
istence two parts are annihilated — the what has been — the what 
shall be. We fold our arms, stand upon the petty and steep 
cragstone, which alone looms out of the Measureless Sea, and 
say to ourselves, looking neither backward nor beyond, " Let 
us bear what is ; " and so for the moment the eye can lighten 
and the lip can smile. — Book II. Chap. 9. 

EVERY man's house HIS CASTLE. 

In our happy country every man's house is his castle. But, 
however stoutly he fortify it, Care enters, as surely as she did 
in Horace's time, through the porticoes of a Roman's villa. 
Nor, whether ceilings be fretted with gold and ivory, or whether 
only colored with whitewash, does it matter to Care any more 
than it does to a house-fly. But every tree, be it cedar or 
blackthorn, can harbor its singing-bird ; and few are the homes 
in which, from nooks least suspected, there starts not a music. 
Is it quite true that '•'' non avium citharasque cantus somnum re- 
ducent ? " Would not even Damocles himself have forgotten 
the sword, if the lute player had chanced upon the notes that 
\\x\U—BookIL Chap. I. 

• MAN IN HIS ART. 

Out of an art a man may be so trivial you would mistake him 
for an imbecile — at best, a grown infant. Put him into his art, 
and how high he soars above you ! How quietly he enters into 
a heaven of which he has become a denizen, and unlocking the 
gates with his golden key, admits you to follow, an humble, 
reverent visitor. — Book II. Chap. 5. 

TEARS AKIN TO PRAYERS. 

Shallow judges of human nature are they who think that tears 
in themselves ever misbecome boy or even man. Well did the 
sternest of Roman writers place the arch distinction of human- 
ity, aloft from all meaner of heaven's creatures, \x\ the preroga- 
tive of tears ! Sooner mayst thou trust thy purse to a profes- 
sional pickpocket than give loyal friendship to the man who 
boasts of eyes to which the heart never mounts in dew ! Only, 



48 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

when man weeps, he should be alone — not because tears are 
weak, but because they should be sacred. Tears are akin to 
prayers. Pharisees parade prayer ; impostors parade tears. O 
Pegasus, Pegasus — softly, softly ! — thou hast hurried me off 
amidst the clouds : drop me gently down — there by the side of 
the motionless boy in the shadowy glen. — Book II. Chap. 6. 

NOT ENOUGH TO SOLVE ANOTHER'S PROBLEM. 

" Never think it enough to have solved the problem started 
by another mind, till you have deduced from it a corollary of 
your own." — Book II. Chap. 9. 

SACRIFICE AND PROGRESS. 

"Without sacrificing bright summer days, one finds one has 
made little progress when the long winter nights come." — Book 
II. Chap. 2. 

A GOOD HEART A LETTER OF CREDIT. 

If a good face is a letter of recommendation, a good heart is 
a letter of credit. — Book II. Chap. 11. 

GIFT OF PRAISING. 

Certainly praise was rare upon Darrell's lips ; but, when he 
did praise, he knew how to do it ! And no man will ever com- 
mand others who has not by nature that gift. It cannot be 
learned. Art and experience can only refine its expression. — 
Book II. Chap. 12. 

man's HEIR. 

He who sees his heir in his own child, carries his eye over 
hopes and possessions lying far beyond his gravestone ; view- 
ing his life, even here, as a period but closed with a comma. 
He who sees his heir in another man's child, sees the full stop 
at the end of the sentence. — Book II Chap. 13. 

OLD MEN. 

Old men do seem happy ; behind them all memories faint, save 
those of childhood and sprightly youth ; before them, the nar- 
row ford, and the sun dawning up the clouds on the other shore. 
'Tis the critical descent into age in which man is surely most^ 
troubled ; griefs gone, still rankling ; nor, strength yet in his 
limbs, passion yet in his heart, reconciled to what loom near- 
est in the prospect — the arm-chair and the palsied head. 
Well ! life is a quaint puzzle. Bits the most incongruous join 
into each other, and the scheme thus gradually becomes sym- 



WHA T WILL HE DO WITH IT. 



49 



metrical and clear ; when, lo ! as the infant claps his hands, 
and cries, " See, see ! the puzzle is made out ! " all the pieces 
are swept back into the box — black box with the gilded nails. 
— Book II. Chap. 14. 

EVERY STREET HAS TWO SIDES. 

Every street has two sides, the shady side and the sunny. 
When two men shake hands and part, mark which of the two 
takes the sunny side ; he will be the younger man of the two. — 
Book II. Chap. 14. 

GUARDIAN SPIRITS. 

A vague remembrance of some tale of " Guardian Spirits," 
with which Waife had once charmed her wonder, stirred through 
her lulling thoughts, linking itself with the presence of that en- 
circling moonlight. There ! see, the eyelids are closed — no 
tear upon their fringe. See the dimples steal out as the sweet 
lips are parted. She sleeps, she dreams already! Where and 
what is the rude world of waking now "i Are there not guardian 
spirits ? Deride the question if thou wilt, stern man, the rea- 
soning and self-reliant : but thou, O fair mother, who hast 
marked the strange happiness on the face of a child that has 
wept itself to sleep — what sayest fhou to the soft tradition, 
which surely had its origin in the heart of the earliest mother ? 
— Book III. Chap. 14. 

DISAGREEABLE TRUTHS. 

There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend 
sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths. — Book III. Chap. 

15- 
TH E THOROUGHBRED ANTHROPpPHAGITE. 

In every civilized society there is found a race of men who 
retain the instincts of the aboriginal cannibal, and live upon 
their fellow-men as a natural food. These interesting but for- 
midable bipeds, having caught their victim, invariably select 
one part of his body on which to fasten their relentless grinders. 
The part thus selected is peculiarly susceptible, Providence 
having made it alive to the least nibble ; it is situated just 
above the hip-joint, it is protected by a tegument of exquisite 
fibre, vulgarly called " the breeches pocket." The thorough- 
bred Anthropophagite usually begins with his own relations and 
friends ; and so long as he confines his voracity to the domestic 
circle, the Laws interfere little, if at all, with his venerable pro- 
pensities. But when he has exhausted all that allows itself to 
4 



so WIT AXD WISDOM OF BULWER. 

be edible in the bosom of private life, the Man-eater falls loose 
on Society, and takes to prowling — then " Sauve qui pent!" 
the Laws rouse themselves, put on their spectacles, call for 
their wigs and gowns, and the Anthropophagite turned prowler 
is not always sure of his dinner. ■ It is when he has arrived at 
this stage of development that the Man-eater becomes of im- 
portance, enters into the domain of History, and occupies the 
thoughts of Moralists. — Book III. Chap. i6. 

ENEMIES AND FRIENDS. 

In life it is difficult to say who do you the most mischief, 
enemies with the worst intentions or friends with the best. — 
Book J II. Chap. 17. 

CONVERSE OF KING AND BEGGAR. 

Let a king and a beggar converse freely together, and it is 
the beggar's fault if he does not say something which makes 
the king lift his hat to him. — Book III. Chap. 18. 

ELECTRIC CHAIN OF UNDERSTANDING. 

Yet were the Mayor's sympathetic liking and respectful ad- 
miration wholly unaccountable ? Runs there not between one 
warm human heart and another the electric chain of a secret 
understanding: 1 In that maimed outcast, so stubbornlv hard 
to himself — so tremulously sensitive for his sick child — was 
there not the majesty to which they who have learned that Na- 
ture has her nobles reverently bow the head .'' A man, true to 
man's grave religion, can no more despise a life wrecked in all 
else, while a hallowing affection stands out sublime through 
the rents and chinks of fortune, than he can profane w-ith rude 
mockery a temple in ruins — if still left there the altar. — Book 
III. Chap. 18. 

TEMPER AND DISPOSITION. 

Happy the man on whose marriage-hearth temper smiles kind 
from the eyes of woman ! " No deity present," saith the 
heathen proverb, " where absent — Prudence " — no joy long a 
guest where Peace is not a dweller. Peace, so like Faith, that 
they may be taken for each other, and poets have clad them 
with the same veil. But in childhood, in early youth, expect 
not the changeless green of the cedar. Wouldst thou distin- 
guish fine temper from spiritless dulness, from cold simulation 
— ask less what the temper, than what the disposition. 

Is the nature sweet and trustful, is it free from the morbid 
self-love w^hich calls itself "• sensitive feeling;," and frets at im- 



WHAT WILL HE DO WITFT IT. 51 

aginary offences ; is the tendency to be grateful for kindness — 
yet take kindness meekly, and accept as a benefit what the 
vain call a due ? From dispositions thus blessed, sweet temper 
will come forth to gladden *thee, spontaneous and free. Quick 
with some, with some, slow, word and look emerge out of the 
heart. By the first question, " Is the heart itself generous and 
tender ? " If it be so, self-control comes with deepening affec- 
tion. Call not that a good heart which, hastening to sting if a 
fibre be ruffled, cries, " I am no hypocrite." Accept that ex- 
cuse, and revenge becomes virtue. But where the heart, if it 
give the offence, pines till it win back the pardon ; if offended 
itself, bounds forth to forgive, even longing to soothe, ever 
grieved if it wound ; then be sure that its nobleness will need 
but few trials of pain in each outbreak, to refine and chastise 
its expression. Fear not then ; be but noble thyself, thou art 
safe ! 

Yet what in childhood is often called, rebukingly, " temper," 
is but the cordial and puissant vitality which contains all the 
elements that make temper the sweetest at last. Who among 
us, how wise soever, can construe a child's heart ? who con- 
jecture all the springs that secretly vibrate within, to a touch on 
the surface of feeling? Each child, but especially the girl- 
child, would task the whole lore of a sage, deep as Shakespeare, 
to distinguish those subtle emotions which we grown folks have 
outlived. — Book III. Chap. 21. 

PREPARATION QF MAN's GENIUS. 

Could we know by what strange circumstances a man's gen- 
ius became prepared for practical success, we should discover 
that the most serviceable items in his education were never en- 
tered in the bills which his father paid for it. — Book V. Chap. 3. 

TO RIGHTLY JUDGE CHARACTER. 

To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes 
have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart. 
— Book V. Chap. 4, 

SCALES OF EARLY JUSTICE. 

The scales of early justice are poised in their quivering equi- 
librium, not by huge hundred-weights, but by infinitesimal 
grains, needing the most wary caution — the most considerate 
patience — the most delicate touch, to arrange or readjust. Few 
of our errors, national or individual, come iprom the design to 
be unjust — most of them from sloth, or incapacity to grapple 
with the difficulties of being just. Sins of commission may 



52 WIT Ay D WISDOM OF BULWEK. 

not, perhaps, shock the retrospect of conscience. Large and 
obtrusive to view, we have confessed, mourned, repented, possi- 
bly atoned them. Sins of omission, so veiled amidst our hourly 
emotions — blent, confused, unseen, In the conventional routine 
of existence. — Alas ! could these suddenly emerge from their 
shadow, group together in serried mass and accusing order — 
alas, alas ! would not the best of us then start in dismay, and 
would not the proudest humble himself at the Throne of 
Mercy \— Book IV. Chap. i8. 

CRITICAL PLACES IN LIFE. 

In every life, go it fast, go it slow, there are critical pausing 
places. When the journey is renewed the face of the country 
is changed. — BookV. Chap. lo. 

HOW TO LIVE. 

Would you throughout life be up to the height of your cen- 
tury — always in the prime of man's reason — without crudeness 
and without decline — live habitually, while young, with persons 
older, and when old, with persons younger than yourself. — 
Book VJ. Chap. 2. 

POWER OF FAITH. 

" There is so much power in faith," said Lionel, "even when 
faith is applied but to things human and earthly, that let a man 
be but firmly persuaded that he is born to do, some day, what 
at the moment seems impossible, and it is fifty to one but what 
he does it before he dies. — Book VI. Chap. 3. 

TRUE MARRIAGE. 

Not the mariage de convenanee, not the manage de raison^ but 
the 7;iariagc d\u?iour. All other marriage, with vows of love so 
solemn, with intimacy of commune so close — all other marriage, 
in my eyes, is an acted falsehood — a varnished sin. — Book VI. 
Chap. 4. 

HARD TO CLIMB. 

Who among my readers that may have risen on the glittering 
steep, C Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb ") has not 
been similarly attracted toward the roof, at the craggy foot of 
the ascent, under which golden dreams refreshed his straining sin- 
ews ? Somewhat quickening in his steps, now that a bourne was 
assigned to them, the man growing old in years, but, unhappily 
for himself, too tenacious of youth in its grand discontent, and 
keen susceptibilities to pain, strode noiselessly on, under the 



WHA T WILL HE DO WITIL IT. 53 

gaslights, under the stars ; gaslights primly marshalled at equi- 
distance ; stars that seem, to the naked eye, dotted over space 
without symmetry or method — Man's order, near and finite, is 
so distinct ; the Maker's order, remote, infinite, is so beyond 
Man's comprehension even of what is order ! — Book VI. Chap. 5. 

THE PUBLIC man's NEED. 

The public man needs but one patron — viz., the lucky mo- 
ment. — Book VI. Chap. 6. 

calamities, — TWO GREAT DIVISIONS. 

Most persons will agree that the toad is ugly and venomous, 
but few indeed are the persons who can boast of having actually 
discovered that '' precious jewel in its head " which the poet as- 
sures us is placed there. But calamity may be classed in two 
great divisions — ist, The affections, which no prudence can 
avert : 2d, The misfortunes, which men take all possible pains 
to bring upon themselves. Afflictions of the first class may but 
call forth our virtues, and result in our ultimate good. Such is 
the adversity which may give us the jewel. But to get at the 
jewel we must kill the toad. Misfortunes of the second class 
but too often increase the errors or the vices by which they were 
created. Such is the adversity which is all toad and no jewel. 
If you choose to breed and fatten your own toads, the increase 
of the venom absorbs every bit of the jewel. — Book VII. ChaJ>. 
10. 

EACH GENERATION ITS OWN CANONS. 

Each generation has its own critical canons in poetry as well 
as in political creeds, financial systems, or whatever other 
changeable matters of taste are called " Settled Questions " and 
"Fixed Opinions."— ^d?^>^ VII. Chap. 20. 

INFLICTIONS PROVIDENT MERCY. 

Heaven often veils its most provident mercy in what to man 
seems its sternest inflictions. — Book VII. Chap. 20. 

PERCEPTION OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

Be it a work of art, a scene in nature, or, rarest of all, a hu- 
man face divine, a beauty never before beheld strikes us with 
hidden pleasure, like a burst of light ; and it is a pleasure that 
elevates. The imagination feels itself richer by a new idea of 
excellence ; for not only is real beauty wholly original, having 
no prototype, but its immediate influence is spiritual. It may 
seem strange — I appeal to every observant artist if the assertion 



54 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

be not true — but the first sight of the most perfect order of fe- 
male beauty, rather than courting, rebukes and strikes back every 
grosser instinct that would alloy admiration. There must be 
some meanness and blemish in the beauty which the sensualist 
no sooner beholds than he covets. In the higher incarnation 
of the abstract idea which runs through all our notions of moral 
good and celestial purity — even if the moment the eye sees the 
heart loves the image — the love has in it something of the rever- 
ence with which it was said the charms of Virtue would produce 
could her form be made visible ; nor could mere human love 
obtrude itself till the sweet awe of the first effect had been fa- 
miliarized away. And I apprehend that it is this exalting or 
etherealizing attribute of iDeauty to which all poets, all writers 
who would poetize the realities of life, have unconsciously ren- 
dered homage, in the rank to which they elevate what, stripped 
of such attribute, would be but a gaudy idol of painted clay. If 
from the loftiest epic to the tritest novel a heroine is often lit- 
tle more than a name to which we are called upon to bow, as to 
a symbol representing beauty ; and if we ourselves (be we ever 
so indifferent in our common life to fair faces) feel that in art, 
at least, imagination needs an image of the Beautiful — if, in a 
Word, both poet and reader here would not be left excuseless, 
it is because in our inmost hearts there is a sentiment which 
links the ideal of beauty with the Supersensual. Wouldst thou, 
for instance, form some vague conception of the shape worn by 
a pure soul released ? wouldst thou give to it the likeness of an 
ugly hag ? or wouldst thou not ransack all thy remembrances, 
all thy conceptions of forms most beauteous, to clothe the holy 
image .'' Do so : now bring it thus robed with the richest graces 
before thy mind's eyCc Well, seest thou now the excuse for 
poets in the rank they give to Beauty? Seest thou now how 
high from the realm of the senses soars the mysterious Arche- 
type ? Without the idea of beauty, couldst thou conceive a 
form in which to clothe a soul that has entered heaven t — Book 
VII. Chap. 23. 

THE author's temperament. 

What is the author's temperament ? Too long a task to be de- 
fined. But without it a man may write a clever book, a useful 
book, a book that may live a year, ten years, fifty years. He 
will not stand out to distant ages a representative of the age 
that rather lived in him than he in it. The author's tempera- 
ment is that which makes him an integral, earnest, original unity, 
distinct from all before and all that may succeed him. And as a 
Father of the Church has said that the consciousness of indi- 



WHA T WILL FIE DO WITH IT. 55 

vidual being is the sign of immortality, not granted to the infe- 
rior creatures — so it is in this individual temperament one and 
indivisible ; and in the intense conviction of it, more than in all 
the works it may throw off, that the author becomes immortal. 
Nay, his works may perish like those of Orpheus or Pythagoras ; 
but he himself, in his name, in the foot-print of his being, re- 
mains, like Orpheus or Pythagoras, undestroyed, indestructible. 
—Book VIII. Chap. I. 

SCIENCE AS A DISTRACTION. 

So long as you take science only as a distraction, science will 
not lead you to discovery. — Book VIII. Chap. i. 

THE COLORS OF LOVC. 

The learned compute that seven hundred and seven millions 
of millions of vibrations have penetrated the eye before the eye 
can distinguish the tints of a violet. What philosophy can calcu- 
late the vibrations of the heart before it can distinguish the col- 
ors of love ? — Book VIII. Chap. 2. 

REASONING FROM THE HEART. 

A woman too often reasons from her heart — hence two-thirds 
of her mistakes and her troubles. A man of genius, too, often 
reasons from his heart — hence, also, two-thirds of his troubles 
and mistakes. Wherefore, between woman and genius there is 
a sympathetic affinity ; each has some intuitive comprehension 
of the secrets of the other, and the more feminine the woman, 
the more exquisite the genius, the more subtle the intelligence 
between the two. But note well that this tacit understanding 
becomes obscured if human love pass across its relations. 
Shakespeare interprets aright the most intricate riddles in woman. 
A woman was the first to interpret aright the art that is latent 
in Shakespeare. But did Anne Hathaway and Shakespeare un- 
derstand each other i* — Book VIII. Chap. 4. 

DIANA LUNA — HECATE. 

There is a place at which three roads meet, sacred to that 
mysterious goddess called Diana on earth, Luna (or the Moon) 
in heaven, and Hecate in the infernal regions. At this place 
pause the Virgins permitted to take their choice of these three 
roads. Few give their preference to that which is vowed to 
the goddess in her name of Diana; that road, cold and barren, 
is clothed by no roses and myrtles. Roses and myrtles veil the 
entrance to both the others, and in both the others Hymen has 
much the same gay-looking temples. But which of those two 



56 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

leads to the celestial Lima, or which of them conducts to the in- 
fernal Hecate, not one nymph in fifty divines. If thy heart 
should misgive thee, O nymph ! — if, though cloud veil the path 
to the Moon, and sunshine gild that to pale Hecate — thine in- 
stinct recoils from the sunshine, while thou darest not advent- 
ure the cloud — thou hast still a choice left, — thou hast still the 
safe road of Diana. Hecate, O nymph ! is the goddess of 
ghosts. If thou takest her path, look not back, for the ghosts 
are behind thee. — Book IX. Chap. 2. 

NUMBER OF FRIENDS. 

Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be times 
in his life when he has one too few ; but if he has only one en- 
emy, he is lucky indeed if he has not one too many. — Book IX. 
Chap. 3. 

GRIEF AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF LIFE. 

Lo, how contrasted the effect of a similar cause of grief at 
different stages of life ! Chase the first day-dreams of our youth, 
and we cry, " Action — Strife ! " In that cry, unconsciously to 
ourselves, Hope speaks, and proffers worlds of emotion not yet 
exhausted. Disperse the last golden illustration in which the 
image of happiness cheats our experienced manhood, and Hope 
is silent ; she has no more words to offer — unless, indeed, she 
drop her earthly attributes, change her less solemn name, and 
float far out of sight as " Faith ! " — Book IX. Chap. 3. 

No wind so cutting as that which sets in the quarter from 
which the sun rises. — Book X. Chap. 5. 

PHYSICAL POWER BRUTE-LIKE OR GOD-LIKE. 

O young Reader, whosoever thou art, on whom Nature has 
bestowed her magnificent gift of physical power with the joys it 
commands, with the daring that springs from it — on closing this 
chapter, pause a moment and think — " What wilt thou do with 
it ? " Shall it be brute-like or God-like ? With what advantage 
for life — its delights or its perils — toils borne with ease, and 
glories cheap bought — dost thou start at life's onset ? Give thy 
sinews a Mind that conceives the Heroic, and what noble things 
thou mayest do ! But value thy sinews for rude Strength alone 
and that strength may be turned to thy shame and thy torture. 
The Wealth of thy life will but tempt to its waste. Abuse, at 
first felt not, will poison the uses of Sense. Wild bulls gore 
and trample their foes. Thou hast Soul ! Wilt thou trample 
and gore it ? — Book X. Chap. 7. 



WffA T WILL HE DO WITH IT. 57 

COURSE OF TRUE LOVE. 

''The course of true love never does run smooth ! " May it 
not be because where there are no obstacles, there are no tests 
to the truth of Love ? Where the course is smooth, the stream 
is crowded with pleasure-boats. Where the wave swells, and 
the shoals threaten, and the sky lowers, the pleasure-boats have 
gone back into harbor. Ships fitted for rough weather are 
those built and stored for long voyage. — Book XI. Chap. i. 

RECONCILIATION OF THE HEART WITH LOSS. 

Now, as he sits and thinks, and gazes abstractedly into that 
far, pale, winter sky — now, the old man is still scheming how 
to reconcile a human loving heart to the eternal loss of that 
affection which has so many perishable counterfeits, but which, 
when true in all its elements — complete in all its varied wealth 
of feeling — is never to be forgotten, and never to be replaced. — 
Book XI. Chap. I. 

YOUNG man's HOPE. 

Nothing so obstinate as a young man's hope ; nothing so 
eloquent as a lover's tongue. — Book XI. Chap. 3. 

INDIVIDUAL CONCESSIONS. 

Individual concessions are like political ; when you once be- 
gin, there is no saying where you will stop. — Book XI. Chap. 
6. 

TREES WHICH SHELTER. 

Trees that, like the poplar, lift upward all their boughs, give 
no shade and no shelter, whatever their height. Trees the 
most lovingly shelter and shade us, when, like the willow, the 
higher soar their summits, the lowlier droop their boughs.— 
Book XI. Chap. 10. 

fortune's workings. 
Let Fortune strike down a victim, and even the heathen cries 
"This is the hand of God!" But where Fortune brings no 
vicissitude ; where her wheel runs smooth, dropping wealth or 
honors as it rolls — where AfHiction centres its work within the 
secret, unrevealing heart — there, ev^en the wisest man may not 
readily perceive by what means Heaven is admonishing, forcing 
or wooing him nearer to itself. I take the case of a .man in 
whom Heaven acknowledges a favored son. I assume his out- 
ward life crowned with successes, his mind stored with opulent 
gifts, his nature endowed with lofty virtues ; what an heir to 



^8 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

train through the brief school of earth for due place in the ages 
that roll on forever ! But this man has a parasite weed in each 
bed of a soul rich in flowers ; weed and flowers intertwined, 
stem with stem — their fibres uniting even deep down to the root. 
Can you not conceive with what untiring vigilant care Heaven 
will seek to disentangle the flower from the weed ? — how (drop- 
ping inadequate metaphor) Heaven will select for its warning 
chastisements that very error which the man has so blent with 
his virtues that he holds it a virtue itself ? — how, gradually, 
slowly, pertinaciously, it will gather this beautiful nature all to 
itself — insist on a sacrifice it would ask from no other ? — Book 
XII. Chap, 2. 

HUMAN LIVES SEPARATE CIRCLES. 

" All human lives are as separate circles ; they may touch 
at one point in friendly approach, but even where they touch, 
each rounds itself from off the other. — Book XII, Chap. 2. 

RELENTING OF FINE NATURES. 

More bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their 
flow melts into their waters. And when fine natures relent, 
their kindness is swelled by the thaw. — Book XII. Chap. 5. 

DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 

" You believe," asked the Man of the World, " in the efficacy 
of a death-bed repentance, when a sinner has sinned till the 
power of sinning be gone ? " 

" I believe," replied the Preacher, " that in health there is 
nothing so unsafe as trust in a death-bed repentance ; I believe 
that on the death-bed it cannot be unsafe to repent ! " — Book 
XII. Chap. 12. 

MAN AND THE HELPMATE. 

And the lake is as smooth as glass ; and the swans, hearken- 
ing the music, rest still, with white breasts against the grass 
margin ; and the doe, where she stands, her fore-feet in the 
water, lifts her head wistfully, with nostrils distended, and 
wondering soft eyes that are missing the master. Now full on 
the beech-groves shines the westering sun ; out from the gloomy 
beech-grove into the golden sunlight — they come, they come — 
Man and the Helpmate, two lives rebetrothed — two souls re- 
united. Be it evermore ! Amen. — Final Chapter. ■ 



"MY NOVEL;" 

OR, 

VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Parson Dale, " quite a beau in a clerical way," a patient man and pattern 
husband. 

Mrs. Dale, wife of the parson, and with all her " tempers " an excellent 
woman. 

Squire Hazeldean, "with a hearty affection for country life." Half 
brother to Audley Egerton. 

Mrs. Hazeldean, the squire's wife and the lady of the parish. 

Frank Hazeldean, son of the squire. 

Miss Jemima Hazeldean, the squire's first cousin, finally married to Dr. 
Riccabocca. 

Capt. Barnabas Higginbotham, a distant relation of the Hazeldeans, at 
whose house he visited ten months of the year. 

AuDLEY Egerton, a widower, and member of Parliament. 

Harley, Lord L'Estrange, the only son of the Earl of Lansmere, a no- 
bleman of considerable wealth, and allied to the most powerful families 
of England. The dearest friend of Audley Egerton. 

Dr. Riccabocca, an Italian exile, alias the Duke di Serrano. 

Violante, daughter to Dr. Riccabocca. A child when the story opens. She 
marries Harley L'Estrange. 

Leonard Fairfield, supposed to be the son of widow Fairfield. In reality 
the son of Egerton. 

Mrs. Fairfield, a plam, middle-aged working-woman. A widow. 

Henry Norreys, a man of letters- 

Randal Leslie, a scheming hypocrite. Protege of Audley Egerton, and 
related to his second wife, who was a Miss Leslie. 

Dr. Morgan, a homoeopathic physician. 

John Avernel, and his wife. Grandfather and mother to Leonard Fair- 
field, on his mother's side. 

Richard Avernel, a self-made man, son of John Avernel. 

Nora Avernel, daughter of John Avernel, First wife of Egerton, and 
mother of Leonard, 

Capt. Algernon Digby, an improvident and invalid soldier. 

Helen Digby, Captain Digby's daughter, finally married to Leonard Fair- 
field, alias Egerton. 

Beatrice, Marchessa di Negra, an Italian beauty. A widow, and sister of 
Count di Peschiera. 

GiULio Franzini, Count di Peschiera. A kinsman of Dr. Riccabocca, and 
seeking to possess himself of the Doctor's fortune. The Count is 
well known as an Italian adventurer. 

Baron Levy, a money-lender. 

John Burley, devoted to literature and whiskey. 

Jackeymo, servant to Dr. Riccabocca. 



6o WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

PEASANT FOND OF HOME. 

How well it speaks for peasant and landlord, when you see 
that the peasant is fond of his home, and has some spare time 
and heart to bestow upon mere embellishment. Such a peas- 
ant is sure to be a bad customer to the ale-house, and a safe 
neighbor to the Squire's preserves. All honor and praise to 
him, except a small tax upon both, which is due to the land- 
lord ! — Book I. Chap. 3. 

ANECDOTE OF THE EMPEROR ADRIAN, 

"Once in a time," pursued Riccabocca, "the Emperor 
Adrian, going to the public baths, saw an old soldier, who had 
served under him, rubbing his back against the marble wall. 
The Emperor, who was a wise, and therefore a curious, inquisi- 
tive man, sent for the soldier, and asked him why he resorted 
to that sort of friction. ' Because,' answered the veteran, ' I am 
too poor to have slaves to rub me down.' The Emperor was 
touched, and gave him slaves and money. The next day, when 
Adrian went to the baths, all the old men in the city were to 
be seen rubbing themselves against the marble as hard as they 
could. The Emperor sent for them, and asked them the same 
question which he had put to the soldier; the cunning old 
rogues, of course, made the same answer. ' Friends,' said 
Adrian, ' since there are so many of you, you will just rub one 
another ! ' Mr. Dale, if you don't want to have all the donkeys 
in the country with holes in their shoulders, you had better not 
buy the Tinker's ! ''—Book I. Chap. 6. 

TREATISE ON " DEAR." 

While the Parson and his wife are entertaining their guest, I 
propose to regale the reader with a small treatise apropos of 
that " Charles dear," murmured by Mrs. Dale — a treatise ex- 
pressly written for the benefit of The Domestic Circle. 

It is an old jest that there is not a word in the language that 
conveys so little endearment as the word "dear." But though 
the saying itself, like most truths, be trite and hackneyed, no 
little novelty remains to the search of the inquirer into the va- 
rieties of inimical import comprehended in that malign mono- 
syllable. For instance, I submit to the experienced that the 
degree of hostility it betrays is in much proportion to its collo- 
cation in the sentence. When, gliding indirectly through the 
rest of the period, it takes its stand at the close, as in that 
" Charles dear " of Mrs. Dale, it has spilt so much of its natural 
bitterness by the way that it assumes even a smile, " amara 



''MY novel:' 6i 

lento temperet risu." Sometimes the smile is plaintive, some- 
times arch. Ex. gr. 

{Plaintive.) — " I know very well that whatever I do is wrong, 
Charles dear." 

" Nay, I am very glad you amused yourself so much without 
me, Charles dear." 

" Not quite so loud ! If you had but my poor head, Charles 
dear," etc. 

{Arc/i.) — " If you could spill the ink anywhere but on the best 
table-cloth, Charles dear ! " 

" But though you must always have your own way, you are 
not quite faultless, own, Charles dear," etc. 

When the enemy stops in the middle of the sentence, its 
venom is naturally less exhausted. Ex. gr. 

" Really, I must say, Charles dear, that you are the most 
fidgety person," etc. 

" And if the house bills were so high last week, Charles 
dear, I should just like to know whose fault it was — that's all." 

" But you know, Charles dear, that you care no more for me 
and the children than — " etc. 

But if the fatal word spring up, in its primitive freshness, at 
the head of the sentence, bow your head to the storm. It then 
assumes the majesty of " my " before it ; it is generally more 
than objurgation — it prefaces a sermon. My candor obliges 
me to confess that this is the mode in which the hateful mono- 
.syllable is more usually employed by the marital part of the one 
flesh ; and has something about it of the odious assumption of 
the 1^ eixuchidin pater-familias — the head of the family — boding, 
not perhaps " peace and love, and quiet life," but certainly 
"awful rule and right supremacy." Ex. gr. 

" My dear Jane — I wish you would just put by that everlast- 
ing crochet, and listen to me for a few moments," etc. 

" My dear Jane — I wish you would understand me for once — 
don't think I am angry — no ; but I am hurt. You must con- 
sider," etc. 

" My dear Jane — I don't know if it is your intention to ruin 
me, but I only wish you would do as all other women do who 
care three straws for their husband's property," etc. 

" My dear Jane — I wish you to understand that I am the last 

person in the world to be jealous : but I'll be d d if that 

puppy, Captam Prettyman," etc. 

Now, few so carefully cultivate the connubial garden, as to 
feel much surprise at the occasional sting of a homely nettle or 
two ; but who ever expected, before entering that garden, to 
find himself pricked and lacerated by an insidious exotical 



62 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

" dear," which he had been taught to believe only lived in a 
hothouse, along with myrtles and other tender and sensitive 
shrubs, which poets approjDriate to Venus ? — Bdok I, Chap. 7. 

EVERY MAN HIS BURDEN. 

Brethren, every man has his burden. If God designed our 
lives to end at the grave, may we not believe that he would 
have freed an existence so brief from the cares and sorrows to 
which, since the beginning of the world, mankind has been sub- 
jected 1 Suppose that I am a kind father, and have a child 
whom I dearly love, but I know by a Divine revelation that he 
will die at the age of eight years, surely I should not vex his 
infancy by needless preparations for the duties of life. If I am 
a rich man, I should not send him from the caresses of his 
mother to the stern discipline of school. If I am a poor man, I 
should not take him with me to hedge and dig, to scorch in the 
sun, to freeze in the winter's cold ; why inflict hardships on his 
childhood for the purpose of fitting him for manhood, when I 
know that he is doomed not to grow into man ? But if, on the 
other hand, I believe my child is reserved for a more durable 
existence, then should I not, out of the very love I bear to him, 
prepare his childhood for the struggle of life, according to that 
station in which he is born, giving many a toil, many a pain, to 
the infant, in order to rear and strengthen him for his duties as 
man ? So it is with our Father that is in heaven. Viewing this 
life as our infancy, and the next as our spiritual maturity, 
where, " in the ages to come, he may show the exceeding riches 
of his grace," it is in his tenderness, as in his wisdom, to permit 
the toil and the pain which, in tasking the powers and develop- 
ing the virtues of the soul, prepare it for " the earnest of our 
inheritance." Hence it is that every man has his burden. 
Brethren, if you believe that God is good, yea, but as tender 
as a human father, you will know that your troubles in life 
are a proof that you are reared for an eternity. But each 
man thinks his own burden the hardest to bear ; the poor 
man groans under his poverty, the rich man under the cares 
that multiply with wealth. Grant all conditions the same — no 
reverse, no rise, and no fall — nothing to hope for, nothing to 
fear — what a moral death you would at once inflict upon all 
the energies of the soul, and what a link between the Heart of 
man and the Providence of God would be snapped asunder ! 
If we could annihilate evil, we should annihilate hope ; and 
hope, my brethren, is the avenue to faith. If there be " a time 
to weep and a time to laugh," it is that he who mourns may 
turn to eternity for comfort, and he who rejoices may bless God 



''MY novel:' 63 

for the happy hour. Ah ! my brethren, were it possible to an- 
nihilate the inequalities of human life, it would be the banish- 
ment of our worthiest virtues, the torpor of our spiritual nature, 
the palsy of our mental faculties. The moral world, like the 
world without us, derives its health and its beauty from diversity 
and contrast. 

"Every man shall bear his own burden." True; but now 
turn to an earlier verse in the same chapter, — " Bear ye one 
another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." Yes ; while 
heaven ordains to each his peculiar suffering, it connects the 
family of man into one household, by that feeling which, more 
perhaps than any other, distinguishes us from the brute crea- 
tion — I mean the feeling to which we give the name of sym- 
pathy — the feeling for each other ! The flock heedeth not the 
sheep that creeps into the shade to die ; but man has sorrow 
and joy not in himself alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those 
around him. He who feels only for himself abjures his very 
nature as man ; for do we not say of one who has no tenderness 
for mankind that he is inhuman ? and do we not call him who 
sorrows with the sorrowful, humane 1 — Book II. Chap 12. 

AN APOLOGY. 

Of all the wares and commodities in exchange and barter, 
wherein so mainly consists the civilization of our modern 
world, there is not one which is so carefully weighed — so ac- 
curately measured — so plumbed and gauged — so doled and 
scraped — so poured out in 7ninima and balanced with scruples 
— as that necessity of social commerce called " an apology ! " 
If the chemists were half so careful in vending their poisons, 
there would be a notable diminution in the yearly average of 
victims to arsenic and oxalic acid. But, alas, in the matter of 
apology, it is not from the excess of the dose, but the timid, 
niggardly, miserly manner in which it is dispensed, that poor 
Humanity is hurried off to the Styx ! — Book III. Chap. 14. 

CHILDREN, — PLEASURE OF BEING USEFUL. 

There is not a greater pleasure you can give children, espe- 
cially female children, than to make them feel they are already 
of value in the world, and serviceable as well as protected. — 
Book IV. Chap. 7. 

APPEALS TO OPERATIVES. 

Noble and generous spirits are ye, who, with small care for 
fame, and little reward from pelf, have opened to the intellects 
of the poor the portals of wisdom ! I honor and revere ye ; 



64 ^IT AND WISDOM OF BUL WER. 

only do not think ye have done all that is needful. Consider, I 
pray ye, whether so good a choice from the Tinker's bag would 
have been made by a boy whom religion had not scared from 
the pestilent, and genius had not led to the self-improving. And 
Lenny did not wholly escape from the mephitic portions of the 
motley elements from which his awakening mind drew its nur- 
ture. Think not it was all pure oxygen that the panting lip 
drew in. No ; there were still those inflammatory tracts. Po- 
litical I do not like to call them, for politics means the art of 
government, and the tracts I speak of assailed all government 
which mankind has hitherto recognized. Sad rubbish, perhaps, 
were such tracts to you, O sound thinker, in your easy-chair ! 
Or to you practised statesman, at your post on the Treasury 
Bench — to you, calm dignitary of a learned Church — or to you, 
my lord judge, who may often have sent from your bar to the 
dire Orcus of Norfolk's Isle the ghosts of men whom that rub- 
bish, falling simultaneously on the bumps of acquisitiveness and 
combativeness, hath untimely slain ! Sad rubbish to you ! But 
seems it such rubbish to the poor man, to whom it promises a 
para.dise on the easy terms of upsetting a world ? For ye see, 
those " Appeals to Operatives " represent that same world up- 
setting as the simplest thing imaginable — a sort of two-and-two- 
make-four proposition. The poor have only got to set their 
strong hands to the axle, and heave-a-hoy ! and hurrah for the 
topsy-turvy ! Then, just to put a little wholesome rage into the 
heave-a-hoy ! it is so facile to accompany the eloquence of " Ap- 
peals " with a kind of stir-the-bile-up statistics — "Abuses of the 
Aristocracy " — " Jobs of the Priesthood " — " Expenses of the 
Army kept up for Peers' younger sons " — "Wars contracted for 
the villancfus purpose of raising the rents of the land-owners" — 
all arithmetically dished up, and seasoned with tales of every 
gentleman who has committed a misdeed, every clergyman who 
has -dishonored his cloth; as if such instances were fair speci- 
mens of average gentlemen and ministers of religion ! All this 
passionately advanced (and observe, never answered, for that 
literature admits no controversialists, and the writer has it all his 
own way) may be rubbish; but it is out of such rubbish that op- 
eratives b^ild barricades for attack, and legislators prisons for 
deAence-,Boo^ IF. Chap. 7. 

INDULGENCE OF POETIC TASTE AND REVERIE. 

To many minds, at the commencement of our grave and ear- 
nest pi/grimage, I am Vandal enough to think that the indul- 
gence of poetic taste and reverie does great and lasting harm ; 
that it serves to enervate the character, give false ideas of life, 



I 



''MYNOVELr 65 

impart the semblance of drudgery to the noble toils and duties 
of the active man. All poetry would not do this — not, for in- 
stance, the Classical, in its diviner masters — not the poetry of 
Homer, of Virgil, of Sophocles — not, perhaps, even that of the 
indolent Horace. But the poetry which youth usually loves and 
appreciates the best — the poetry of mere sentiment — does so in 
minds already over-predisposed to the sentiment, and which re- 
quire bracing to grow into healthful manhood. 

On the other hand, even this latter kind of poetry, which is 
peculiarly modern, does suit many minds of another mould — 
minds which our modern life, with its hard positive forms, tends 
to produce. And as in certain climates plants and herbs, par- 
ticularly adapted as antidotes to those diseases most prevalent 
in the atmosphere, are profusely sown, as it were, by the benig- 
nant providence of nature — so it may be that the softer and 
more romantic species of poetry, which comes forth in harsh, 
money-making, unromantic times, is intended as curatives and 
counter-poisons. The world is so much with us, now-a-days, 
that we need have something that prates to us, albeit even in 
too fine an euphuism, of the moon and stars. — Book IV. Chap. 9. 

SOMETHING NOBLER THAN FORTUNE. 

Certes, to Leonard Fairfield, at that period of his intellectual 
life, the softness of out Helicon descended as healing dews. 
In his turbulent and unsettled ambition, in his vague grapple 
with the giant forms of political truths, in his bias toward the 
application of science to immediate practical purposes, this 
lovely vision of the Muse came in the white robe of the Peace- 
maker ; and with upraised hand, pointing to serene skies, she 
opened to him fair glimpses of the Beautiful, which is given to 
Peasant as to Prince — showed to him that on the surface of the 
earth there is something nobler than fortune — that he who can 
view the world as a poet is always at soul a king ; while to prac- 
tical purpose itself, that larger and more profound invention, 
which poetry stimulates, supplied the grand design and the sub- 
tle view — leading him beyond the mere ingenuity of the me- 
chanic, and habituating him to regard the inert force of the 
matter at his command with the ambition of the Discoverer. 
But above all, the discontent that was within him finding a 
vent, not in deliberate war upon this actual world, but through 
the purifying channels of song — in the vent itself it evaporated, 
it was lost. By accustoming ourselves to survey all things with 
the spirit that retains and reproduces them only in their lovelier 
or grander aspects, a vast philosophy of toleration for what we 
before gazed on with scorn or hate insensibly grows upon us. 
5 



(£ WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Leonard looked into his heart after the Enchantress had breathed 
upon it ; and through the mists of the fleeting and tender mel- 
ancholy which betrayed where she had been, he beheld a new 
sun of' delight and joy dawning over the landscape of human 
life. 

Thus, though she was dead and gone from his actual knowl- 
edge, this mysterious kinswoman — " a voice, and nothing more " 
— had spoken to him, soothed, elevated, cheered, attuned each 
discord into harmony ; and, if now permitted from some serener 
sphere to behold the life that her soul thus strangely influenced, 
verily with yet holier joy, the saving and lovely spirit might 
have glided onward in the Eternal Progress. 

We call the large majority of human lives obscure. Presumpt- 
uous that we are ! How know we what lives a single thought 
retained from the dust of nameless graves may have lighted to 
renown ? — Book IV. Chap. 9. 

HAPPINESS. 

"Come hither, my child," said Mr. Dale, turning round to 
Violante, who still stood among the flowers, out of hearing, but 
with watchful eyes. " Come hither," he said, opening his arms. 

Violante bounded forward, and nestled to the good man's 
heart. 

" Tell me, Violante, when you are alone in the fields or the 
garden, and have left your father looking pleased and serene, 
so that you have no care for him at your heart, — tell me, Vio- 
lante, though you are alone, with the flowers below, and the 
birds singing overhead, do you feel that life itself is happiness 
or sorrow ? " 

" Happiness ! " answered Violante, half shutting her eyes, and 
in a measured voice. 

" Can you explain what kind of happiness it is t " 

*' Oh, no, impossible ! and it is never the same. Sometimes 
it is so still — so still, and sometimes so joyous, that I long for 
wings to fly up to God, and thank him ! " — Book IV. Chap. 16. 

DESIRE TO KNOW. 

Certainly it is a glorious fever that desire to know ! And 
there are few sights in the moral world more sublime than that 
which many a garret might afford, if Asmodeus would bare the 
roofs to our survey — viz., a brave, patient, earnest human be- 
ing toiling his own arduous way, athwart the iron walls of pen- 
ury, into the magnificent Infinite, which is luminous with starry 
souls. — Book IV. Chap. 18. 



''MY NOVELr . e^^ 

INTELLECTUAL CULTURE NOT NECESSARY TO VIRTUE. 

Let me here, my child, invite you to observe, that He who 
knew most of our human hearts and our immortal destinies, did 
not insist on this intellectual culture as essential to the virtues 
that form our well-being here, and conduce to our salvation 
hereafter. Had it been essential, the Allwise One would not 
have selected humble fishermen for the teachers of His doc- 
trine, instead of culling His disciples from Roman portico or 
Athenian academe. And this, which distinguishes so remarka- 
bly the Gospel from the ethics of heathen philosophy, wherein 
knowledge is declared to be necessary to virtue, is a proof how 
slight was the heathen sage's insight into the nature of mankind, 
when compared with the Saviour's ; for hard, indeed, would it be 
to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, if science and learn- 
ing, or contemplative philosophy, were the sole avenues to 
peace and redemption ; since, in this state of ordeal requiring 
active duties, very few in any age, whether they be high or low, 
rich or poor, ever are or can be devoted to pursuits merely men- 
tal. Christ does not represent heaven as a college for the 
learned; therefore the rules of the Celestial Legislator are 
rendered clear to the simplest understanding as to the deepest. 
— Book IV, Chap. 20. 

" I WISH " AND " I WILL." 

"Oh," continued Violante, again raising her head loftily, 
" what it is to be a man ! A woman sighs * I wish,' but a man 
should say 'I ^\\\r'—Book IV. Chap. 22. 

DESCRIPTION OF l'eSTRANGE. 

He was not L'Estrange with them, he was Harley ; and by 
that familiar baptismal I will usually designate him. He was 
not one of those men whom author or reader wish to view at a 
distance, and remember as " my Lord," it was so rarely that he 
remembered it himself. For the rest, it had been said of him 
by a shrewd wit, — " He is so natural, that every one calls him 
affected." Harley L'Estrange was not so critically handsome 
as Audley Egerton ; to a commonplace observer he was only 
rather good-looking than otherwise. But women said that he 
had "a beautiful countenance" — and they were not wrong. 
He wore his hair, which was of a fair chestnut, long, and in 
loose curls ; and instead of the Englishman's whiskers, indulged 
in the foreigner's mustache. His complexion was delicate, 
though not effeminate ; it was rather the delicacy of a student 
than of a woman. But in his clear gray eye there was wonder- 
ful vigor of life. A skilful physiologist, looking only into that 



68 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

eye, would have recognized rare stamina of constitution, — a na- 
ture so rich, that, while easily disturbed, it would require all 
the effects of time, or all the fell combinations of passion and 
grief, to exhaust it. Even now, though so thoughtful, and even 
so sad, the rays of that eye were as concentrated and steadfast 
as the light of the diamond." — Book V. Chap, 6. 

WOMAN CHANGEABLE. 

" Hush ! Audley, hush ! or I shall think the world has indeed 
corrupted you. Excuse for the friend who deceives, who be- 
trays ! No, such is the true outlaw of Humanity ; and the Fu- 
ries surround him even while he sleeps in the temple." 

The man of the world lifted his eyes slowly on the animated 
face of one still natural enough for the passions. He then once 
more returned to his book, and said, after a pause, " It is time 
you should marry, Harley." 

" No," answered L'Estrange, with a smile at this sudden turn 
in the conversation — " not time yet ; for my chief objection to 
that change in life is, that the women nowadays are too old for 
me, or I am too young for them. A few, indeed, are so infantine 
that one is ashamed to be their toy ; but most are so knowing 
that one is afraid to be their dupe. The first, if they conde- 
scend to love you, love you as the biggest doll they have yet 
dandled, and for a doll's good qualities — your pretty blue eyes 
and your exquisite millinery. The last, if they prudently accept 
you, do so on algebraical principles ; you are but the X or the 
Y that represents a certain aggregate of goods matrimonial — 
pedigree, title, rent-roll, diamonds, pin-money, opera-box. They 
cast you up with the help of mamma, and you wake some morn- 
ing to find that/Z/'/j" wife minus affection equals — the Devil ! " 

" Nonsense," said Audley, with his quiet grave laugh. " I 
grant that it is often the misfortune of a man in your station to 
be married rather for what he has than for what he is ; but you 
are tolerably penetrating, and not likely to be deceived in the 
character of the woman you court." 

"Of the woman I cotirt ? — No ! But of the woman I marry, 
very likely indeed. Woman is a changeable thing, as our Vir- 
gil informed us at school ; but her change par excellence is from 
the fairy you woo to the brownie you wed. It is not that she 
has been a hypocrite, it is that she is a transmigration. ^ You 
marry a girl for her accomplishments. She paints charmingly, 
or plays like St. Cecilia. Clap a ring on her finger, and she 
never draws again — except perhaps your caricature on the back 
of a letter, and never opens a piano after the honey-moon. You 
marry her for her sweet temper ; and next year, her nerves are 



\ ''MY novel:' 69 

so shattered that you can't contradict her but you are whirled 
into a storm of hysterics. You marry her because she declares 
she hates balls and likes quiet ; and ten to one but what she be- 
comes a patroness ^t Almack's, or a lady-in-waiting." — Book V, 
Chap. 6. 

THE POET — CREATIVE FACULTY — FAME. 

Gazing on his last effort, Leonard felt that there, at length, 
spoke forth the Poet. It was a work which, though as yet but 
half completed, came from a strong hand ; not that shadow 
trembling on unsteady waters, which is but the pale reflex and 
imitation of some bright mind, sphered out of reach and afar, 
but an original substance — a life— a thing of the Creative Fac- 
ulty, — breathing back already the breath it had received. This 
work had paused during Leonard's residence with Mr. Avenel, 
or had only now and then, in stealth, and at night, received a 
rare touch. Now, as with a fresh eye, he reperused it, and with 
that strange, innocent admiration, not of self — for a man's work 
is not, alas ! himself, — it is the beautified and idealized essence 
(extracted, he knows not how^, from his own human elements of 
clay), admiration known but to poets — their purest delight, 
often their sole reward. And then, with a warmer and more 
earthly beat of his full heart, he rushed in fancy to the Great 
City, where all rivers of Fame meet, but not to be merged and 
lost, — sallying forth again, individualized and separate, to flow 
through that one vast Thought of God which we call The 
V^om.T>.—Book VI. Chap. 5. 

MAN LIKE A BOOK. 

" Man is like a book, Mr. Prickett ; the commonalty only 
look to his binding. I am better bound, it is very true." — Book 
VI. Chap. 19. ^ 

PATIENCE, COURAGE OF THE CONQUEROR. 

Patience is the courage of the conqueror; it is the virtue, /^r 
excelleiice., of Man against Destiny — of the One against the World, 
and of the Soul against Matter. Therefore this is the courage 
of the Gospel ; and its importance, in a social view — its import- 
ance to races and institutions — cannot be too earnestly inculca- 
ted.— ^^<?>^ VII. Chap. I. 

STRANGE HUMAN HEART. 

Oh Strange human heart ! no epic ever written achieves the 
Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread by human 
eye, in thy secret leaves. — Book VII. Chap. 15. 



70 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWEK. 

THOUGHT PRESIDING OVER ALL. 

He read what poets must read if they desire to be great — Sa- 
pere principium et fons — strict reasonings on the human mind: 
the relations between motive and conduct, thought and action, 
the grave and solemn truths of the past world ; antiquities, his- 
tory, philosophy. He was taken out of himself. He was car- 
ried along the ocean of the universe. In that ocean, O seeker, 
study the law of the tides ; and seeing Chance nowhere — 
Thought presiding over all, — Fate, that dead phantom, shall 
vanish from creation, and Providence alone be visible in heaven 
and on earth ! — Book VI2. Chap. 2. 

LITERATURE AS A CALLING. 

"Lord L'Estrange tells me that you wish to enter literature as 
a calling, and no doubt to study it as an art. I may help you 
in this, and you meanwhile can help me. I want an amanuensis 
— I offer you that place. The salary will be porportioned to 
the services you will render me. I have a room in my house at 
your disposal. When I first came up to London, I made the 
same choice that I hear you have done. I have no cause, even 
in a worldly point of view, to repent my choice. It gave me 
an income larger than my wants. I trace my success to these 
maxims, which are applicable to all professions — ist. Never to 
trust to genius for what can be obtained by labor; 2dly, Never 
to profess to teach what we have not studied to understand ; 
3rdly, Never to engage our word to what we do not our best to 
execute. With these rules, literature — provided a man does 
not mistake his vocation for it, and will, under good advice, go 
through preliminary discipline of natural powers, which all vo- 
cations require — is as good a calling as any other. Without 
them, a shoe-black's is infinitely better." — Book VII. Chap. 19. 

HEART MATCHING THE HEAD. 

It has, doubtless, been already remarked by the judicious 
reader, that of the numerous characters introduced into this work, 
the larger portion belong to that species which we call the Intel- 
lectual — that through them are analyzed and developed human 
intellect, in various forms and directions. So that this History, 
rightly considered, is a kind of humble familiar Epic, or, if you 
prefer it, a long Serio-Comedy, upon the Varieties of English 
Life in this our Century, set in movement by the intelligences 
most prevalent. And where more ordinary and less refined 
types of the species round and complete the survey of our pass- 
ing generation, they will often suggest, by contrast, the deficien- 
cies which mere intellectual culture leaves in the human being. 



'* MY novel:' yi 

Certainly, I have no spite against intellect and enlightenment. 
Heaven forbid I should be such a Goth ! I am only the advo- 
cate for common sense and fair play. I don't think an able 
man necessarily an angel ; but I think if his heart match his 
head, and both proceed in the Great March under the divine 
Oriflamme, he goes as near to the angel as humanity will per- 
mit : if not, if he has but a penn'orth of heart to a pound 
of brains, I say, ^'' Bon Jour, mon angel I see not the starry 
upward wings, but the grovelling c^oven-hoof." — Book VIII. 
Chap, I. 

LIFE A RIDDLE. 

" Life is a dark riddle," said he, smiting his breast. 

And he walked slowly on, gained the recess where he had 
stood several nights before with Helen, and, dizzy with want 
of food, and worn out for want of sleep, he sank down into the 
dark corner ; while the river that rolled under the arch of stone 
muttered dirge-like in his ear — as under the social key-stone 
wails and rolls on forever the mystery of Human Discontent. 
Take comfort, O Thinker by the stream ! 'Tis the river that 
founded and gave pomp to the city ; and without the discontent, 
where were progress — what were Man ? Take comfort, O 
Thinker ! wherever the stream over which thou bendest, or be- 
side which thou sinkest, weary and desolate, frets the arch that 
supports thee ; — never dream that, by destroying the bridge, 
thou canst silence the moan of the wave ! — Book VII. Chap. 15. 

GAIT AND MIEN INDICATIONS OF SPIRIT AND DISPOSITION. 

One may judge of the spirits and disposition of a man by his 
ordinary gait and mien in walking. He who habitually pursues 
abstract thought, looks down on the ground. He who is accus- 
tomed to sudden impulses, or is trying to seize upon some nec- 
essary recollection, looks up with a kind of jerk. He who is a 
steady, cautious, merely practical man, walks on deliberately, his 
eyes straight before him ; and even in his most musing moods, 
observes things around sufficiently to avoid a porter's knot or a 
butcher's tray. But the man with strong ganglions — of pushing, 
lively temperament, who, though practical, is yet speculative — 
the man who is emulous and active, and ever trying to rise in 
life — sanguine, alert, bold — walks with a spring — looks rather 
above the heads of his fellow-passengers — but with a quick, 
easy turn of his own, which is lightly set on his shoulders ; his 
mouth is a little open — his eye is bright, rather restless, but 
penetrative — his port has something of defiance — his form is 
erect, but without stiffness. — Book IX. Chap. 5. 



^2 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

UNION OF TWO HEARTS. 

Who shall say — who conjecture how near two hearts can be- 
come, when no guilt lies between them, and time brings the ties 
all its own ? Rarest of all things on earth is the union in which 
both, by their contrasts, make harmonious their blending; each 
supplying the defects of the helpmate, and completing, by fus- 
ion, one strong human soul ! Happiness enough, where even 
Peace does but seldom preside, when each can bring to the al- 
tar if not the flame, still the incense. Where man's thoughts 
are all noble and generous, woman's feelings all gentle and 
pure, love may follow, if it does not precede ; — and if not,— if 
the roses be missed from the garland, one may sigh for the rose, 
but one is safe from the thorn. — Book IX. Chap. 8. 

APPROACH OF THE PARVENU TO THE EXQUISITE. 

It is noticeable that it is yowx parve?tu who always comes near- 
est in fashion (so far as externals are concerned) to your genu- 
ine exquisite. It is yonr parvenu who is most particular as to 
the cut of his coat, and the precision of his equipage, and the 
minutiae of his menage. Those between the parvenu and the ex- 
quisite, who know their own consequence, and have something 
solid to rest upon, are slow in following all the caprices of fash- 
ion, and obtuse in observation as to those niceties which neither 
give them another ancestor, nor add another thousand to the ac- 
count at their banker's ; — as to the last, rather, indeed, the con- 
trary ! — Book IX. Chap. 13. 

DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS. 

The education of a superior human being is but the develop- 
ment of ideas in one for the benefit of others. To this end, at- 
tention should be directed — ist. To the value of the ideas col- 
lected ; 2ndly, To their discipline ; 3rdly, To their expression. 
For the first, acquirement is necessary ; for the second, disci- 
pline ; for the third, art. The first comprehends knowledge, 
purely intellectual, whether derived from observation, memory, 
reflection, books or men, Aristotle or Fleet Street. The second 
demands traifting, not only intellectual, but moral ; the purifying 
and exaltation of motives ; the formation of habits ; in which 
method is but a part of a divine and harmonious symmetry — an 
union of intellect and conscience. Ideas of value, stored by the 
first process ; marshalled into force, and placed under guidance, 
by the second ; it is the result of the third, to place them before 
the world in the most attractive or commanding form. This 
may be done by actions no less than words ; but the adaptation 
of means to end, the passage of ideas from the brain of one man 



''MY NOVEL." . 73 

into the lives and souls of all, no less in action than in books, 
requires study. Action has its art as well as literature. Here 
Norreys had but to deal with the calling of the scholar, the forma- 
tion of the writer, and so to guide the perceptions toward those 
varieties in the sublime and beatiful, the just combination of 
which is at once creation. Man himself is but a combination 
of elements. He who combines in nature, creates in art. — Book 
IX. Chap. 1 6. 

FINE NATURES LIKE FINE POEMS. 

Fine natures are like fine poems, — a glance at the first two 
lines suffices for a guess into the beauty that waits you if you 
read on. — Book X. Chap. 3. 

PITY AND ADMIRATION BOTH FELT. 

Ah ! wherever pity and admiration are both felt, something 
nobler than mere sorrow must have gone before ; the heroic 
must exist. — Book X. Chap. 3. 

GENIUS AND ITS INFLUENCE. 

VioLANTE (with enthusiasm). — How I envy you that past 
which you treat so lightly ! To have been something, even in 
childhood, to the formation of a noble nature ; to have borne on 
those slight shoulders half the load of a man's grand labor. 
And now to see Genius moving calm in its clear career ; and to 
say inly, " Of that genius I am a part ! " 

Helen (sadly and humbly).— A part ! Oh, no ! I don't un- 
derstand you. 

Violante. — Take the child Beatrice from Dante's life, and 
should we have a Dante } What is a poet's genius but the voice 
of its emotions.? All things in life and in Nature influence 
genius ; but what influences it the most are its own sorrows and 
affections. — Book XI. Chap. 7. 

DEATH OF EGERTON. 

Egerton reared his head, as if to answer ; and all present were 
struck and appalled by the sudden change that had come over 
his countenance. There was a film upon the eye — a shadow on 
the aspect ; the words failed his lips — he sunk on the seat beside 
him. The left hand rested droopingly upon the piles of public 
papers and official documents, and the fingers played with them, 
as the bed-ridden sufferer plays with the coverlid he will soon 
exchange for the winding-sheet. But his right hand seemed to 
feel, as through the dark, for the recovered son ; and having 
touched what it sought, feebly drew Leonard near and nearer. 



74 WJT AND WISDOM OF BU LIVER. 

Alas ! that blissful private life — that close centre round the 
core of being in the individual man — so long missed and pined 
for — slipped from him, as it were, the moment it reappeared ; 
hurried away, as the circle on the ocean, which is scarce seen 
ere it vanishes amidst infinity. Suddenly both hands were still ; 
the head fell back. Joy had burst asunder the last ligaments, 
so fretted away in unrevealing sorrow. Afar, their sound borne 
into that room, the joy-bells were pealing triumph ; mobs roaring 
out huzzas ; the weak cry of John Avenel might be blent in those 
shouts, as the drunken zealots reeled by his cottage-door, and 
startled the screaming ravens that wheeled round the hollow oak. 
The boom which is sent from the waves on the surface of life, 
while the deeps are so noiseless in their march, was wafted on 
the wintry air into the chamber of the statesman it honored, and 
over the grass sighing low upon Nora's grave. But there was 
one in the chamber, as in the grave, for whom the boom on the 
wave had no sound, and the march of the deep had no tide. 
Amidst promises of home, and union, and peace, and fame, 
Death strode into the household ring, and seating itself, calm 
and still, looked life-like ; warm hearts throbbing round it ; lofty 
hopes fluttering upward ; Love kneeling at its feet ; Religion, 
with lifted linger, standing by its side. — Book XII. Chap. 34. 

EVERMORE. 

There are certain moments in life in which we say to our- 
selves, " All is over ; no matter what else changes, that which I 
have made my all is gone evermore — evermore." And our own 
thought rings back in our ears, " Evermore — evermore ! " — Book 
XI. C/iap. 7. 

AN IMPRUDENT MARRIAGE. 

Nothing but real love (how rare it is ! has one human heart in 
a million ever known it ?) — nothing but real love can repay us for 
the loss of freedom — the cares and fears of poverty — the cold 
pity of the world that we both despise and respect. And all 
these, and much more, follow the step you would inconsiderately 
take — an imprudent marriage." — Book XI. Chap. 14. 

ANGELS OF LOVE, AND* KNOWLEDGE. 

You can regulate the warm tide of wild passion — you can 
light into virtue the dark errors of ignorance ; but where the 
force of the brain does but clog the free action of the heart — 
where you have to deal, not with ignorance misled, but intelli- 
gence corrupted — small hope of reform ; for reform here will 
need reorganization. I have somewhere read (perhaps in He- 
brew tradition) that of the two orders of fallen spirits — the An- 



''MY NOVELr 75 

gels of Love, and the Angels of Knowledge — the first missed the 
stars they had lost, and wandered back tlirough the darkness, 
one by one into heaven ; but the last, lighted on by their own 
lurid splendors, said, " Wherever we go, there is heaven ! " And 
deeper and lower descending, lost their shape and their nature, 
till, deformed and obscene, the bottomless pit closed around 
them." — Final Chapter, 

THE HEIGHT OF BLISS. 

A Greek poet implies, that the height of bliss is the sudden 
relief of pain ; there is a nobler bliss still — the rapture of the 
conscience at the sudden release from a guilty thought. — Book 
XII. Chap. 31. 

TRUTH A VITAL NECESSITY. 

For SO vital a necessity to all living men is truth, that the 
vilest traitor feels amazed and wronged — feels the pillars of the 
world shaken, when treason recoils on himself. — Book XII. 
Chap. T,i. 

DUTY OF THE INTELLECT BLESSED THE WOMAN WHO CONSOLES. 

Leonard thinks over the years that his still labor has cost him, 
and knows that he has exhausted the richest mines of his intel- 
lect, and that long years will elapse before he can recruit that 
capital of ideas which is necessary to sink new shafts, and bring 
to light fresh ore ; and the deep despondency of intellect, frus- 
trated in its highest aims, has seized him, and all he has before 
done is involved in failure by the defeat of the crowning effort. 
Failure, and irrecoverable, seems his whole ambition as writer ; 
his whole existence in the fair Ideal seems to have been a prof- 
itless dream, and the face of the Ideal itself is obscured. And 
even Norreys frankly, though kindly, intimates that the life of a 
metropolis is essential to the healthful intuition of a writer in the 
intellectual wants of his age ; since every great writer supplies a 
want in his own generation, for some feeling to be announced, 
some truth to be revealed ; and as this maxim is generally sound, 
as most great writers have lived in cities, Leonard dares not 
dwell on the exceptions; it is only success that justifies the at- 
tempt to be an exception to the common rule ; and with the blunt 
manhood of his nature, which is not a poet's, Norreys sums up 
with, " What then ? One experiment has failed ; fit your life to 
your genius, and try again." Try again ! Easy counsel enough 
to the man of ready resource and quick combative mind ; but to 
Leonard, how hard and how harsh ! " Fit his life to his genius ! " 
— renounce contemplation and Nature for the jostle of Oxford 
Street ? — would that life not scare away the genius forever ? 



76 V/IT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Perplexed and despondent, though still struggling for fortitude 
he returns to his home, and there at his hearth awaits the 
Soother, and there is the voice that repeats the passages most 
beloved, and prophesies so confidently of future fame ; and 
gradually all around smiles from the smile of Helen. And the 
profound conviction that Heaven places human happiness be- 
yond the reach of the world's contempt or praise, circulates 
through his system and restores its serene calm. And he feels 
that the duty of the intellect is to accomplish and perfect itself 
— to harmonize its sounds into music that may be heard in 
Heaven, though it wake not an echo on the earth. If this be 
done, as with some men, best amidst the din and the discord, be 
it so ; if, as with him, best in silence, be it so too. And the 
next day he reclines with Helen by the sea-shore, gazing calmly 
as before on the measureless sunlit ocean ; and Helen, looking 
into his face, sees that it is sunlit as the deep. His hand steals 
within her own, in the gratitude that endears beyond the power 
of passion, and he murmurs gently, " Blessed be the woman who 
consoles." — Final Chapter. 

BLESSED THE WOMAN WHO EXALTS. 

The old Countess, who had remained silent and listening on 
her elbow-chair, rose and kissed the Earl's hand reverently. 
Perhaps in that kiss there was the repentant consciousness how 
far the active goodness she had often secretly undervalued had 
exceeded, in its fruits, her own cold unproductive powers of will 
and mind. Then passing on to Harle}^, her brow grew elate, 
and the pride returned to her eye. 

" At last," she said, laying on his shoulder that light firm 
hand, from which he no longer shrunk — " at last, O m}- noble 
son, you have fulfilled all the promise of your youth ! " 

" If so," answered Harley, " it is because I have found what 
I then sought in vain." He drew his arm around Violante, and 
added, with a half tender half solemn smile — " Blessed is the 
woman who exalts ! " 



So, symbolled forth in these twin and fair flowers which Eve 
saved for Earth out of Paradise, each with the virtue to heal or 
to strengthen, stored under the leaves that give sweets to the 
air ; — here, soothing the heart when the world brings the trouble 
— here, recruiting the soul which our sloth or our senses ener- 
vate, leave we woman, at least, in the place Heaven assigns to 
her amidst the multiform "Varieties of Life." 

Farewell to thee, gentle Reader ; and go forth to the world, 
O My Novel ! — Final Chapter. 



ERNEST MALTRAVERS. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Ernest Maltravers, the hero and heir to affluent fortunes. 

Mr. Frederick Cleveland, a younger son of the Earl of Byrnsham, and 
guardian of Ernest Maltravers. 

Alice Uarvil, the heroine, the early and last love of Ernest Maltravers. 

Luke Uarvil, a hardened criminal, father to Alice. 

John WaLTERS, Darvil's companion in crime. 

Lumley Ferrers, a man who had seen a great deal of the world. His 
rule in life to make all persons and things subservient to himself. 
He succeeds to the title of his uncle Lord Vargrave. 

Madame de Ventadour, descended from one of the most illustrious 
houses of France. 

Monsieur de Ventadour, Madame's husband. 

Monsieur de Montaigne, forty-eight, tall and handsome, a true philosopher, 
employed with distinction in civil affairs. 

3IADAME DE MoNTAiGNE, a celebrated personage in Italy, her earlier life 
spent on the stage and her promise of vocal excellence brilliant. But 
after a brief, though splendid career, she marries De Montaigne, and re- 
tires to private life. She is also gifted as an improvisatrice. 

SiGNOR Castruccio Cesarine, a poet and brother of Madame De Mon- 
taigne. 

Mrs, Leslie, friend to Alice. A woman of the finest intellect and the softest 
heart. 

Mr. Templeton, an opulent man, a banker, and once in Parliament. He 
becomes Lord Vargrave. 

Evelyn Templeton, the banker's daughter. 

Lady Florence Lascelles, the daughter of the Earl of Saxingham, and 
supposed to be the richest heiress in England. Also intellectual and 
handsome. 

Lord Saxingham, in political life. Lumley Ferrers' great relation. 

Colonel Danvers, sat next to Maltravers in Parliament; his friend polit- 
ically more than socially. 



THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 



Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we 
pass the narrow gulf from Youth to Manhood. That interval is 
usually occupied by an ill-placed or disappointed affection. We 
recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has 
become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. 
The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may 
measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone. 
— Book I. Chap. 14. 



78 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 



BEGIN LIFE WITH BOOKS. 

We should begin life with books ; they multiply the sources 
of employment ; so does capital ; but capital is of no use, unless 
we live on the interest, — books are waste paper unless we spend 
in action the wisdom we get from thought. — Book I. Chap. 15. 

CRISES IN LIFE. 

And Ernest Maltravers one night softly stole to his room 
and opened the New Testament, and read its heavenly morali- 
ties with purged eyes ; and when he had done, he fell upon his 
knees, and prayed the Almighty to pardon the ungrateful heart 
that, worse than the Atheist's, had confessed His Existence, but 
denied His goodness. His sleep was sweet and his dreams 
were cheerful. Did he rise to find that the penitence which had 
shaken his reason would henceforth suffice to save his life from 
all error ? Alas ! remorse overstrained has too often re-actions 
as dangerous ; and homely Luther says well, that " the mind, 
like the drunken peasant on horseback, when propped on one 
side, nods and falls on the other." — All that can be said is, that 
there are certain crises in life which leave us long weaker; 
from which the system recovers with frequent revulsion and 
weary relapse, — but from which, looking back, after years have 
passed on, we date the foundation of strength or the cure of 
disease. It is not to mean souls that creation is darkened by a 
fear of the anger of Heaven. — Book I. Chap. 16. 

THE BEAUTY-MAN. 

The air, the manner, the tone, the conversation, the some- 
thing that interests, and the something to be proud of — these 
are the attributes of the man made to be loved. And the 
Beauty-man is, nine cases out of ten, little more than the oracle 
of his aunts, and the " sitch a love " of the housemaid ! — Book 
II. Chap. 2. 

EXPERIENCE AN OPEN GIVER. 

I fear that as yet Ernest Maltravers had gained little from 
Experience, except a few current coins of worldly wisdom (and 
not very valuable those !), while he had lost much of that no- 
bler wealth with which youthful enthusiasm sets out on the 
journey of life. Experience is an open giver, but a stealthy 
thief. There is, however, this to be said in her favor, that we 
retain her gifts ; and if ever we demand restitution in earnest, 
'tis ten to one but what we recover her thefts. — Book II. Chap. 3. 



ERNES T MA L TRA VERS. 79 

TO LIVE HAPPILY. 

People, to live happily with each other, mustyf/ in as it were 
— the proud be mated with the meek, the irritable with the 
gentle, and so forth. — Book II. Chap. 4. 

NIGHT AND LOVE. 

When stars are in the quiet skies, 

Then most I pine for thee ; 
Bend on me, then, thy tender eyes, 
As stars look on the sea ! 

For thoughts, like waves that glide by night, 

Are stillest where they shine ; 
Mine earthly love lies hushed in light, 

Beneath the heaven of thine. 

There is an hour when angels keep 

Familiar watch on men ; 
When coarser souls are wrapt in sleep, — 

Sweet spirit, meet me then. 

There is an hour when holy dreams, 

Through slumber, fairest glide ; 
And in that mystic hour, it seems 

Thou shouldst be by my side. 

The thoughts of thee too sacred are 

For daylight's common beam ; — 
I can but know thee as my star. 

My angel, and my dream ! 

Book III. Chap. I. 

INTELLECTUAL AMBITION. 

"It is an excitement," said Valerie, "to climb a mountain, 
though it fatigue ; and though the clouds may even deny us a 
prospect from its summit — it is an excitement that gives a very 
universal pleasure, and that seems almost as if it were the result 
of common human instinct, which makes us desire to rise — to 
get above the ordinary thoroughfares and level of life. Some 
such pleasure you must have in intellectual ambition, in which 
the mind is the upward traveller." 

"It is not the ambition that pleases," replied Maltravers, "it 
is the following a path congenial to our tastes, and made dear to 
us in a short time by habit. The moments in which we look be- 
yond our work, and fancy ourselves seated beneath the Ever- 
lasting Laurel, are few. It is the work itself, whether of action 
or literature, that interests and excites us. And at length the 
dryness of toil takes the familiar sweetness of custom. But in 
intellectual labor there is another charm — we become more inti- 
mate with our own nature. The heart and the soul grow friends, as 



8o WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

it were, and the affections and aspirations unite. Thus, we are 
never without society — we are never alone ; all that we have 
read, learned, and discovered, is company to us. — Book V. 
Chap. 9. 

FORCING INFANTS UNDER KNOWLEDGE-FRAMES. 

He was far too clever a man not to despise all the systems of 
forcing infants under knowledge-frames, which are the present 
fashion. He knew that philosophers never made a greater mis- 
take than in insisting so much upon beginning abstract educa- 
tion from the cradle. It is quite enough to attend to an infant's 
temper, and correct that cursed predilection for telling fibs which 
falsifies all Dr. Reid's absurd theory about innate propensities 
to truth, and makes the prevailing epidemic of the nursery. 
Above all, what advantage ever compensates for hurting a child's 
health or breaking his spirit ? Never let him learn, more than 
you can help it, the crushing bitterness of fear. A bold child 
who looks you in the face, speaks the truth, and shames the 
devil ; that is the stuff of which to make good and brave — ay, 
and wise men ! — Book III. Chap. 4. 

FIDELITY OF BOOKS. 

We may talk of the fidelity of books, but no man ever wrote 
even his own biography, without being compelled to omit at 
least nine-tenths of the most important materials. What are 
three — what are six volumes ? We live six volumes in a day ! 
Thought, emotion, joy, sorrow, hope, fear, how prolix they would 
be, if they might each tell their hourly tale ! But man's life it- 
self is a brief epitome of that which is infinite and everlasting ; 
and his most accurate confessions are a miserable abridgment 
of a hurried and confused compendium ! — Book IV. Chap. 2. 

PERIODICALS AN EXCELLENT MODE OF COMMUNICATION. 

Periodicals form an excellent mode of communication between 
the public and an author already established, who has lost the 
charm of novelty, but gained the weight of acknowledged repu- 
tation ; and who, either upon politics or criticism, seeks for fre- 
quent and continuous occasions to enforce his peculiar theses and 
doctrines. But, upon the young writer, this mode of communi- 
cation, if too long continued, operates most injuriously both as to 
his future prospects and his own present taste and style. With 
respect to the first, it familiarizes the public to his mannerism 
(and all writers worth reading have mannerism) in a form to 
which the said public are not inclined to attach much weight. He 
forestalls in a few months what ought to be the effect of years ; 



ERNEST MAL TRA VERS. 8 1 

namely, the wearying a world soon nauseated with the toujours 
perdrix. With respect to the last, it induces a man to write for 
momentary effects ; to study a false smartness of style and rea- 
soning ; to bound his ambition of durability to the last day of 
the month ; to expect immediate returns for labor ; to recoil at the 
"hope deferred " of serious works on which judgment is slowly 
formed. The man of talent who begins young at periodicals, 
and goes on long, has generally something crude and stunted 
about both his compositions and his celebrity. He grows the 
oracle of small coteries ; and we can rarely get out of the im- 
pression that he is cockneyfied and conventional. Periodicals 
sadly mortgaged the claims that Hazlitt, and many others of his 
contemporaries, had upon a vast reversionary estate of Fame. 
But I here speak too politically ; to some, \h<t res angiistce domi 
leave no option. And, as Aristotle and the Greek proverb have 
it, we cannot carve out all things with the knife of the Delphic 
cutler. — Book V. Chap, 4. 

LONG ABSENCES. 

Long absences extinguish all the false lights, though not the 
true ones. The lamps are dead in the banquet-room of yester- 
day ; but a thousand years hence, and the stars we look on to- 
night will burn as brightly. — Book V. Chap. 8. 

THE EXERCISE OF INTELLECT. 

" Do you think," replied De Montaigne, " that the dead did not 
feel the same when they first trod the path that leads to the life 
beyond life ? Continue to cultivate the mifld, to sharpen by exer- 
cise the genius, to attempt to delight or to instruct your race ; 
and even supposing you fall short of every model you set before 
you — supposing your name moulder with your dust, still you 
will have passed life more nobly than the unlaborious herd. 
Grant that you win not that glorious accident, 'a name below,' 
how can you tell but what you may have fitted yourself for high 
destiny and employ in the world not of men, but of spirits? 
The powers of the mind are things that cannot be less immortal 
than the mere sense of identity ; their acquisitions accompany us 
through the Eternal Progress ; and we may obtain a lower or a 
higher grade hereafter, in proportion as we are more or less 
fitted by the exercise of our intellect to comprehend and execute 
the solemn agencies of God. The wise man is nearer to the an- 
gels than the fool is. This may be an apocryphal dogma, but it 
is not an impossible theory." 

" But we may waste the sound enjoyments of actual life in 
6 



82 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

chasing the hope you justly allow to be * apocryphal ; ' and our 
knowledge may go for nothing in the eyes of the Omniscient." 

"Very well," said De Montaigne, smiling; "but answer me 
honestly. By the pursuits of intellectual ambition do you waste 
the sound enjoyments of life ? If so, you do not pursue the sys- 
tem rightly. Those pursuits ought only to quicken your sense 
for such pleasures as are the true relaxations of life. And this, 
with you peculiarly, since you are fortunate enough not to de- 
pend for subsistence upon literature ; — did you do so, I might 
rather advise you to be a trunk-maker than an author. A man 
ought not to attempt any of the highest walks of Mind and Art, 
as the mere provision of daily bread ; not literature alone, but 
everything else of the same degree. He ought not to be a 
statesman, or an orator, or a philosopher, as a thing of pence 
and shillings : and usually all men, save the poor poet, feel this 
truth insensibly." — Book V. Chap. 5. 

CONSCIOUSNESS OF POWER IN' CORRECT INTELLECT. 

There is in a sound and correct intellect, with all its gifts 
fairly balanced, a calm consciousness of power, a certainty that 
when its strength is fairly put out, it must be to realize the us- 
ual result of strength. Men of second-rate faculties, on the con- 
trary, are fretful and nervous, fidgeting after a celebrity which 
they do not estimate by their own talents, but by the talents of 
some one else. They see a tower, but are occupied only with 
measuring its shadow, and think their own height (which they 
never calculate) is to cast as broad a one over the earth. It is 
the short man who is always throwing up his chin, and is as 
erect as a dart. The tall man stoops and the strong man is not 
always using the dumb-bells. — Book III. Chap. 2. 

NO REPOSE IN A CAREER. 

When we have commenced a career, what stop is there till the 
grave ? — where is the definite barrier of that ambition which, like 
the eastern bird, seems ever on the wing, and never rests upon 
the earth ? Our names are not settled till our death : the ghosts 
of what we have done are made our haunting monitors — our 
scourging avengers — if ever we cease to do, or fall short of the 
younger past. Re'pose is oblivion ; to pause is to unravel all 
the web that we have woven — until-the tomb closes over us, and 
men, just when it is too late, strike the fair balance between our- 
selves and our rivals ; and we are measured, not by the least, 
but by the greatest, triumphs we have achieved. Oh, what a 
crushing sense of impotence comes over us, v/hen we feel that 
our fame cannot support our mind — when the hand can no 



ERNEST MAL TRA VERS. ^^ 

longer execute what the soul, actively as ever, conceives and de- 
sires ! — the quick life tied to the dead form — the ideas fresh as 
immortality, gushing forth rich and golden, and the broken 
nerves, and the aching frame, and the weary eyes ! — the spirit 
athirst for liberty and heaven — and the damning, choking con- 
sciousness that we are walled up and prisoned in a dungeon 
that must be our burial-place ! Talk not of freedom — there is 
no such thing as freedom to a man whose body is a goal, whose 
infirmities are the racks, of his genius ! — Book VI. Chap 4. 

THE POOR AUTHOR. 

The poor author ! how few persons understand, and forbear 
with, and pity him ! He sells his health and youth to a rugged 
taskmaster. And, O blind and selfish world, you expect him to 
be as free of manner, and as pleasant of cheer, and as equal of 
mood, as if he were passing the most agreeable and healthful ex- 
iste ice that pleasure could afford to smooth the wrinkles of the 
mind, or medicine invent to regulate the nerves of the body ! 
— Book VI. Chap. 4. 

THE PUBLIC A DAMNABLE GOSSIP. 

The public, if you indulge it, is a most damnable gossip, 
thrusting its nose into people's concerns, where it has no right 
to make or meddle ; and in those things, where the Public is 
impertinent, Maltravers scorned and resisted its interference as 
haughtily as he would the interference of any insolent member 
of the insolent whole. It was this mixture of deep love and 
profound respect for the eternal people, and of calm, passion- 
less disdain for that capricious charlatan, the momentary pub- 
lic, which made Earnest Maltravers an original and solitary 
thinker ; and an actor, in reality modest and benevolent, in ap- 
pearance arrogant and unsocial. " Pauperism, in contradistinc- 
tion to poverty," he was wont to say, "is the dependence upon 
other people for existence, not on our own exertions ; there is 
a moral pauperism in the man who is dependent on others for 
that support of moral life — self-respect." — Book VII. Chap. 1. 

VAST DEBT OWED TO AUTHORS. 

An author himself, he could appreciate the vast debt which 
the world owes to authors, and pays but by calumny in life and 
barren laurels after death. He whose profession is the Beauti- 
ful succeeds only through the Sympathies. Charity and Com- 
passion are virtues taught wdth difficulty to ordinary men ; to 
true Genius they are but the instincts which direct it to the 
Destiny it is born to fulfil, — viz., the discovery and redemption 



84 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

of new tracts in our common nature. Genius — the sublime 
Missionary — goes forth from the serene Intellect of the Author 
to live in the wants, the griefs, the infirmities of others, in order 
that it may learn their language ; and as its highest achieve- 
ment is Pathos, so its most absolute requisite is Pity! — Book 
VIII. Chap. 6. 

GENIUS. 

" Genius is essentially honest," said Maltravers. — Book 
VIII. Chap. 3. 

ILLNESS OF THE BODY. 

The illness of the body usually brings out a latent power and 
philosophy of the soul, which health never knows ; and God has 
mercifully ordained it as the customary lot of nature, that in 
proportion as we decline into the grave, the sloping path is made 
smooth and easy to our feet ; and every day, as the films of clay 
are removed from our eyes, Death loses the false aspect of the 
spectre, and we fall at last into its arms as a wearied child upon 
the bosom of its mother. — Book IX. Chap. 4. 

RELIGION — POETRY. 

And, oh, then, how Florence loved him ! how far more luxuri- 
ous in its grateful and clinging fondness, was that love, than the 
wild and jealous lire of their earlier connection ! Her own 
character, as is often the case in lingering illness, became incal- 
culably more gentle and softened down, as the shadows closed 
around it. She loved to make him read and talk to her — and 
her ancient poetry of thought now grew mellowed, as it were, 
into religion, which is indeed poetry with a stronger wing. . . . 
There was a world beyond the grave — there was life out of the 
chrysalis sleep of death — they would yet be united. And Mal- 
travers, who was a solemn and intense believer in the great 
HOPE, did not neglect the purest and highest of all the fountains 
of solace. — Book IX. Chap. 6. 

HUMAN LIFE A CIRCLE. 

Human life is compared to the circle. — Is the simile just ? 
All lines that are drawn from the centre to touch the circumfer- 
ence, by the law of the circle, are equal. But the lines that are 
drawn from the heart of the man to the verge of his destiny — 
do they equal each other? — Alas ! some seem so brief, and some 
lengthen on as forever. — E7id of the first part of Ernest Mal- 
travers. 



ERNEST MAL TEA VERS. 85 

DISCONNECTION BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND THE MAN. 

There is a terrible disconnection between the author and the 
man — the author's Ufe and the man's life — the eras of invisible 
triumph may be those of the most intolerable, though unrevealed 
and unconjectured anguish. The book that delighted us to 
compose may first appear in the hour when all things under the 
sun are joyless. — Book IX. Chap. 7. 

soul's STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM. 

There are times when the arrow quivers within us — in which 
all space seems too confined. Like the wounded hart, we could 
fly on forever ; there is a vague desire of escape — a yearning, 
almost insane, to get out from our own selves ; the soul strug- 
gles to flee away, and take the wings of the morning. — Book IX. 
Chap. 5. 



ALICE; OR THE MYSTERIES. 

A SEQUEL TO ERNEST MALTRAVERS. 



Same characters as in " Ernest Maltravers," with the additional ones of — 

Mrs. Merton, a daughter of Mrs. Leslie. 

Caroline Merton, a daughter of Mrs. Merton, and wife of Lord Dolti- 

more. 
Rev. Mr. Merton, a popular clergyman. 
Mr. xA.in?REY, an old and reverenced curate. 
Lord Doltimore, a young nobleman, whose chief characteristics were 

vanity and conceit. 
Colonel George Legrand, a young man, honorable and handsome, who 

marries Evelyn. 



NOTE. 

Although it has been judged desirable to designate that 
Second Part of "Ernest Maltravers" by its original title of 
*' Alice," yet, as it has been elsewhere stated, the two Parts are 
united by the same plot, and formed but one entire whole. The 
more ingenious and attentive will perhaps perceive that under 
the outward story which knits together the destinies of Alice 
and Maltravers, there is an interior philosophical design which 
explains the author's application of the word " Eleusinia," or 
'' Mysteries," appended to the title. Thus regarded, Ernest 
Maltravers will appear to the reader as the type of Genius, or 
Intellectual Ambition, which, at the onset of its career, devotes 
itself with extravagant and often erring Passion to Nature alone 
(typified by Alice). Maltravers is separated, by action and the 
current of worldly life, from the simple and earlier form of Na- 
ture, — new objects successively attract, and for a short time ab- 
sorb his devotion, but he has always a secret yearning to the 
first idol, and a repentant regret for his loss. Completing, how- 
ever, his mental education in the actual world, and, though 
often led astray from the path, still earnestly fixing his eye upon 
the goal, — he is ultimately reunited to the one who had first 
smiled upon his youth, and ever (yet unconsciously) intiuenced 
his after manhood. But this attachment is no longer erring, 
and the object of it has attained to a purer and higher state of 



ALICE; OR THE MYSTERIES. 87 

being ; — that is, Genius ; if duly following its vocaLion, reunites 
itself to the Nature from which life and art had for awhile dis- 
tracted it ; but to Nature in a higher and more spiritual form 
than that under which youth beholds it, — Nature elevated and 
idealized. 

In tracing the progress and denouement of this conception, 
the reader will be better enabled to judge both of the ethical 
intention of the author, and of the degree of success with which, 
as an artist, he has connected the inward story with the outer, 
and while faithful to his main typical purpose left to the char- 
acters that illustrate it, the attributes of reality — the freedom 
and movement of living beings. So far as an author may pre- 
sume to judge of his own writings — no narrative fiction by the 
same hand (with the exception of the poem of "King Arthur") 
deserves to be classed before this work in such merit as may 
be thought to belong to harmony between a premeditated con- 
ception and the various incidents and agencies employed in the 
development of plot. 

IMPERFECT JUDGES. 

The best of us are imperfect judges of the happiness of 
others. In the woe or weal of a whole life, we must decide 
for ourselves. — Book I. Chap. 12. 

BEAUTY TWICE BLEST. 

Beauty, thou art twice blessed ; thou blessest the gazer and 
the possessor; often, at once the effect and the cause of good- 
ness ! A sweet disposition — a lovely soul — an affectionate na- 
ture — will speak in the eyes — the lips — the brows^-and become 
the cause of beauty. On the other hand, they who have a gift 
that commands love, a key that opens all hearts, are ordinarily 
inclined to look with happy eyes upon the world — to be cheer- 
ful and serene — to hope and to confide. There is more wisdom 
than the vulgar dream of in our admiration of a fair face. — Book 
II. Chap. I. 

THE RELIGION OF FREEDOM. 

The spirit of liberty, that strikes the chain from the slave, 
binds the freeman to his brother. This is the Religion of Free- 
dom. And hence it is that the stormy struggles of Free States 
have been blessed with results of Virtue, of Wisdom, and of Gen- 
ius — by him who bade us love one another, — not only that love 
in itself is excellent, but that from love, which in its widest sense 
is but the spiritual term for liberty, whatever is worthiest of our 
solemn nature has its birth. — Book II. Chap. 7. 



88 WIT AND WISDOM OF BUI WER. 

LOVE IN FIRST SHAPE. 

Love, in its first dim and imperfect shape, is but imagina- 
tion concentrated on one object. It is a genius of the heart, 
resembling that of intellect ; it appeals to, it stirs up, it evokes 
the sentiments and sympathies that lie most latent in our na- 
ture. Its sigh is the spirit that moves over the ocean and 
arouses the Anadromene into life. Therefore is it that mind 
produces affections deeper than those of external form ; there- 
fore it is that women are worshippers of glory, which is the palp- 
able and visible representative of a genius whose operations 
they cannot always comprehend. Genius has so much in 
common with love — the imagination that animates one is so 
much the propeity of the other — that there is not a surer sign 
of the existence of genius than the love that it creates and be- 
queaths. It penetrates deeper than the reason — it binds a no- 
bler captive than the fancy. As the sun upon the dial, it gives 
to the human heart both its shadow and its light. Nations are 
its worshippers and wooers ; and Posterity learns from its ora- 
cles to dream, to aspire, to adore ! — Book IV. Chap. 9. 

OLD AGE. 

The curate was seated, then, one fine summer morning, on a 
bench at the left of his porch, screened from the sun by the 
cool boughs of a chestnut-tree, the shadow of which half cov- 
ered the little lawn that separated the precincts of the house 
from those of silent Death and everlasting Hope ; above the ir- 
regular and moss-grown paling rose the village church ; and, 
through the openings in the trees, beyond the burial-ground, 
partia'^lly gleamed the white walls of Lady Vargrave's cottage, 
and were seen at a distance the sails on the 

" Mighty waters rolling evermore." 

The old man was calmly enjoying the beauty of the morning, 
the freshness of the air, the warmth of the dancing beam, and 
not least, perhaps, his own peaceful thoughts ; the spontaneous 
children of a contemplative spirit and a quiet conscience. His 
was the age when we most sensitively enjoy the mere sense of 
existence ; when the face of Nature, and a passive conviction 
of the benevolence of our Great Father, suffice to create a se- 
rene and ineffable happiness, which rarely visits us till we have 
done with the passions ; till memories, if more alive than hereto- 
fore, aie yet mellowed in the hues of time, and Faith softens 
into harmony all their asperities and harshness; till nothing 
within us remains to cast a shadow over the things without; 
and on the verge of life, the Angels are nearer to us than of 



ALICE ; OR THE MYSTERIES. 89 

yore. There is an old age which has more youth of heart than 
youth itself! — Book V. Chap, i, 

TO ENDURE THE ONLY PHILOSOPHY. 

I find in life that suffering succeeds to suffering, and disap- 
pointment to disappointment, as wave to wave. To endure is 
the only philosophy — to believe that we shall live again in a 
brighter planet is the only hope that our reason should accept 
from our desires. — Book VI. Chap. i. 

NOTHING IMMORAL PERMANENTLY POPULAR. 

It is a consolation to know that nothing really immoral is ever 
permanently popular, or ever, therefore, long deleterious ; what 
is dangerous in a work of genius cures itself in a few years. We 
can now read Werther, and instruct our hearts by its exposition 
of weakness and passion — our taste by its exquisite and unri^ 
vailed simplicity of construction and detail, without any fear 
that we shall shoot ourselves in top-boots ! We can feel ourselves 
elevated by the noble sentiments of " The Robbers," and our 
penetration sharpened as to the wholesale immorality of con- 
ventional cant and hypocrisy, without any danger of turning 
banditti, and becoming cut-throats from the love of virtue. 
Providence, that has made the genius of the few in all times and 
countries the guide and prophet of the many, and appointed 
Literature as the sublime agent of Civilization, of Opinion, and 
of Law, has endowed the elements it employs with a divine 
power of self-purification. The stream settles of itself by rest 
and time ; the impure particles fly off, or are neutralized by the 
healthful. It is only fools that call the works of a master-spirit 
immoral. There does not exist in the literature of the world one 
popular book that is immoral two centuries after it is produced. 
P'or, in the heart of nations, the False does not live so long; 
and the True is the Ethical to the end of time. — Book VI. 
Chap. 2. 

DEMOCRACIES AND ARISTOCRACIES. 

Talk of legislation ; all isolated laws pave the way to wholesale 
changes in the form of government ! Emancipate Catholics, and 
you open the door to the democratic principle that Opinion 
should be free. If free with the sectarian, it should be free 
with the elector. The Ballot is a corollary from the Catholic 
Relief-bill. Grant the ballot and the new corollary of enlarged 
suffrage. Suffrage enlarged is divided but by a yielding sur- 
face (a circle widening in the waters) from universal suffrage. 
Universal suffrage is Democracy. Is democracy better than 



90 



IVIT AND WISDOM OF BU LIVER. 



the aristocratic commonwealth ? Look at the Greeks, who 
knew both forms, are they agreed which is the best ? Plato, 
Thucydides, Xenophon, Aristophanes — the Dreamer, the His- 
torian, the Philosophic Man of Action, the penetrating Wit — 
have no ideals in Democracy ! Algernon Sidney, the martyr of 
liberty, allows no government to the multitude. Brutus died for 
a republic, but a republic of Patricians ! What form of govern- 
ment is, then, the best ? All dispute, the wisest cannot agree. 
The many still say " a Republic , " yet, as you yourself will al- 
low, Prussia, the Despotism, does all that Republics do. Yes, 
but a good Despot is a lucky accident , true, but a just and 
benevolent Republic is as yet a monster equally short-lived. — 
When the People have no other tyrant, their own public opin- 
ion becomes one. No secret espionage is more intolerable to 
a free spirit than the broad glare of the American eye. 

A rural republic is but a patriarchal tribe — no emulation, 
no glory ; — peace and stagnation. What Englishman — what 
Frenchman, would wish to be a Swiss ? A commercial repuJ^lic 
is but an admirable machine for making money. Is Man crea- 
ted for nothing nobler than freighting ships and speculating on 
silk and sugar 1 In fact, there is no certain goal in legislation ; 
we go on colonizing Utopia, and fighting phantoms in the clouds. 
Let us content ourselves with injuring no man, and doing good 
only in our own little sphere. Let us leave states and senates 
to fill the sieve of the Danaides and roll up the stone of Sisy- 
phus.— i?^f?/& VI. Chap. 5. 

AFFECTION TO THOSE UNSKILLED. 

W'ith Madame de Ventadour and the De Montaignes Maltra- 
vers passed the chief part of his time. They knew how to appre- 
ciate his nobler, and to love his gentler attributes and qualities; 
they united in a warm interest for his future fate ; they combated 
his Philosophy of Inaction; and they felt that it was because 
he was not happy that he was not wise. Experience was to him 
what ignorance had been to Alice. His faculties were chilled 
and dormant. As affection to those who are unskilled in all 
things, so is affection to those who despair of all things. The 
mind of Maltravers was a world without a sun ! — Book VI. 
Chap. 2. 

A MIDDLE CLASS IN CIVILIZATION. 

In each state Civilization produces a middle class, more nu- 
merous to-day than the whole peasantry of a thousand years ago. 
Would Movement and Progress be without their divine uses, 
even if they limited their effect to the production of such a class ? 



ALICE ; OR THE MYSTERIES. 91 

Look also to the effect of art, and refinement, and just law, in 
the wealthier and higher classes. See how their very habits of 
life tend to increase the sum of enjoyment — see the mighty ac- 
tivity that their very luxury, the very frivolity of their pursuits, 
create ! Without an aristocracy, would there have been a middle 
class ? without a middle class, would there ever have been an 
interposition between lord and slave ? Before Commerce pro- 
duces a middle class. Religion creates one. The Priesthood, 
whatever its errors, was the curb to power. But, to return to 
the multitude — you say that in all times they are left the same. 
Is it so .'' I come to statistics again ; I find that not only civiliza- 
tion, but liberty, has a prodigious effect upon human life. It 
is, as it were, by the instinct of self-preservation that liberty is 
so passionately desired by the multitude. A negro slave, for 
instance, dies annually as one to five or six, but a free African 
in the English service only as one to thirty-five ! Freedom is 
not, therefore, a mere abstract dream — a beautiful name — a Pla- 
tonic aspiration : it is interwoven with the most practical of all 
blessings, life itself ! And can you say fairly, that, by laws, 
labor cannot be lightened and poverty diminished ? We have 
granted already that, since there are degrees in discontent, there 
is a difference between the peasant and the serf ; — how know you 
what the peasant a thousand years hence may be .-* Discon- 
tented, you will say — still discontented. Yes ; but if he had 
not been discontented, he would have been a serf still ! 
Far from quelling this desire to better himself, we ought to 
hail it as the source of his perpetual progress. The desire to 
him is often like imagination to the poet, it transports him into 
the Future — 

" Crura sonant ferro, sed canit inter opus." 

It is, indeed, the gradual transformation from the desire of De- 
spair to the desire of Hope, that makes the difference between 
man and man — between misery and bliss. — Book VI. Chap. 5. 

A YOUNG man's AMBITION BUT VANITY. 

A young man's ambition is but vanity, — it has no definite 
aim, — it plays with a thousand toys. As with one passion, so 
with the rest. In youth, love is ever on the wing; but, like 
the birds in April, it hath not yet built its nest. With so long 
a career of summer and hope before it, the disappointment of 
to-day is succeeded by the novelty of to-morrow, and the sun 
that advances to the noon but dries up its fervent tears. But 
when we have arrived at that epoch of life, — when, if the light 
fail us, if the last rose wither, we feel that the loss cannot be 



92 WIT AND WISDOM GF BULWER. 

retrieved, and that the frost and the darkness are at hand, 
Love becomes to us a treasure that we watch over and hoard 
with a miser's care. Our youngest born affection is our dar- 
ling and our idol, the fondest pledge of the Past, the most cher- 
ished of our hopes for the Future. A certain melancholy that 
mingles with our joy at the possession only enhances its charm. 
We feel ourselves so dependent on it for all that is yet to come. 
Our other bark — our gay galleys of pleasure — our stately argo- 
sies of pride — have been swallowed up by the remorseless wave. 
On this last vessel we freight our all — to its frail tenement we 
commit ourselves. The star that guides it is our guide, and in 
the tempest that menaces we behold our own doom ! — Book VIII. 
Chap. 3. 

DUTIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 

Every stage of life has its duties ; every man must be himself 
the judge of what he is most fit for. It is quite enough that he 
desires to be active, and labors to be useful ; that he acknowl- 
edges the precept " never to be weary in well doing." The 
divine appetite once fostered, let it select its own food. But 
the man who, after fair trial of his capacities, and with all oppor- 
tunity for their full development before him, is convinced that 
he has faculties which private life cannot wholly absorb, must 
not repine that Human Nature is not perfect, when he refuses 
to exercise the gifts he himself possesses. — Book VI. Chap. 5. 

AFFECTIONS STRONGER THAN REASONINGS. 

How true it is that we cannot make a philosophy of indiffer- 
ence ! The affections are stronger than all our reasonings. 
We must take them into our alliance, or they will destroy all 
our theories of self-government. Such fools of Fate we are, pass- 
ing from system to system — from scheme to scheme — vainly 
seeking to shut out passion and sorrow- — forgetting that they 
are born within us — and return to the soul as the seasons to the 
^2iX\\).\—Book VIII. Chap. i. 

THE JEALOUSY OF STRONG AFFECTIONS. 

Men of strong affections are jealous of their own genius. 
They know how separate a thing from the household character 
genius often is, — they fear lest they should be loved for a quality, 
not for themselves. — Book VIII. Chap. 3. 

THE MORALITY OF ATONExMENT. 

He ceased, overpowered with the rush of his own thoughts. 
And Alice was too blest for words. But in the murmur of the 



ALICE; OR THE MYSTERIES. 93 

sunlit leaves — in the breath of the summer air — in the sons: of 
the exulting birds — end the deep and distant music of the heaven- 
surrounded seas, there went a melodious voice that seemed as 
if Nature echoed to his words and blest the reunion of her chil- 
dren. 

Maltavers once more entered upon the career so long sus- 
pended. He entered with an energy more practical and stead- 
fast than the fitful enthusiasm of former years. And it was 
noticeable among those who knew him well, that while the 
firmness of his mind was not impaired, the haughtiness of his 
temper was subdued. No longer despising Man as he is, and 
no longer exacting from all things the ideal of a visionary stand- 
ard, he was more fitted to mix in the living World, and to 
minister usefully to the great objects that refine and elevate 
our race. His sentiments were, perhaps, less lofty, but his ac- 
tions were infinitely more excellent, and his theories infinitely 
more wise. Stage after stage we have proceeded with him 
through the Mysteries of Life. The Eleusinia are closed, and 
the crowning libation poured. 

And Alice ! — Will the world blame us if you are left happy at 
the last ? We are daily banishing from our law-books the stat- 
utes that disproportion punishment to crime. Daily we preach 
the doctrine that we demoralize wherever we strain justice into 
cruelty. It is time that we should apply to the Social Code the 
wisdom we recognize in Legislation ! — It is time that we should 
do away with the punishment of death for inadequate offences, 
even in books ; — it is time that we should allow the Morality of 
Atonement, and permit to Error the right to hope, as the reward 
of submission to its sufferings. Nor let it be thought that the 
close to Alice's career can offer temptation to the offence of its 
commencement. Eighteen years of sadness — a youth consumed 
in silent sorrow over the grave of Joy — have images that throw 
over these pages a dark and warning shadow that will haunt 
the young long after they turn from the tale that is about to close! 
If Alice had died of a broken heart — if her punishment had 
been more than she could bear — then, as in real life, you 
would have justly condemned my moral ; and the human heart, 
in its pity for the victim, would have lost all recollection of the 
error. — Final Chapter, 



PAUL CLIFFORD. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Paul Clifford, captain of the bandits, supposed to be an outcast, in 
reality the son of William Brandon. 

Mrs. Margery Lobkins, landlady of small tavern, and given to intemper- 
ance. The protector of Paul during his boyhood. 

Peter MacGrawler, editor of " The AsiuDcum," afterwards connected 
with the bandits. 

DuMMiE Dunnaker, a rag merchant. 

Augustus Tomlinson, a young newspaper man of great promise, after- 
wards a highwayman. 

Edward Pepper, generally termed "Long Ned," a highwayman, chiefly 
noted for his hair. 

Gentleman George, " the noted head of a flash public house in the coun- 
try." 

Fighting Attie, one of the bandits. 

Joseph Brandon, a widower, good-natured and weak. 

'William Brandon, in the House of Commons. Brother to Joseph Bran- 
don. 

Lucy Brandon, a lovely girl, daughter of Joseph Brandon, married to 
Paul Clifford. 

Lord Mauleverer, a dissipated nobleman, possessed of an immense 
property. 



PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840. 

This Novel so far differs from the other fictions by the same 
author, that it seeks to draw its interest rather from practical 
than ideal sources. Out of some twelve Novels or Romances, 
embracing, however inadequately, a great variety of scene and 
character, — €rom " Pelham " to the " Pilgrims of the Rhine," — 
from " Rienzi " to the " Last Days of Pompeii," — " Paul Clif- 
ford " is the only one in which a robber has been made the 
hero, or the peculiar phases of life which he illustrates have 
been brought into any prominent description. 

Without pausing to inquire what realm of manners, or what 
order of crime and sorrow are open to art, and capable of 
administering to the proper ends of fiction, I may be permitted 
to observe, that the present subject was selected, and the Novel 
written, with a two-fold object : 

First, to draw attention to two errors in our penal institu- 



PAUL CLIFFORD. 9^ 

lions, viz., a vicious Prison-discipline and a sanguinary Crimi- 
nal Code, — the habit of corrupting the boy by the very punish- 
ment that ought to redeem him, and then hanging the man, at 
the first occasion, as the easiest way of getting rid of our own 
blunders. Between the example of crime which the tyro learns 
from the felons in the prison-yard, and the horrible levity with 
which the mob gather round the drop at Newgate, there is a 
connection which a writer may be pardoned for quitting loftier 
regions of imagination to trace and to detect. So far this book 
is less a picture of the king's highway than the law's royal road 
to the gallows, — a satire on the short-cut established between 
the House of Correction and the Condemned Cell. A second 
and a lighter object in the Novel of " Paul Clifford " (and 
hence the introduction of a semi-burlesque or travesty in the 
earlier chapters), was to show that there is nothing essentially 
different between vulgar vice and fashionable vice, — and that 
the slang of the one circle is but an easy paraphrase of the 
cant of the other. 

TRUTHS IN FRAGMENTS. 

It is amazing to us what a number of truths there are broken 
up into little fragments, and scattered here and there through 
the world. What a magnificent museum a man might make of 
the precious minerals, if he would b.ut go out with his basket 
under his arm, and his eyes about him ! — Chap. 4. 

YOUNG MEN ADDICTED TO BYRON's POETRY. 

There are some young gentlemen of the present day addicted 
to the adoption of Lord Byron's poetry, with the alteration of 
new rhymes, who are pleased graciously to inform us that they 
are born to be the ruin of all those who love them : an interest- 
ing fact, doubtless, but which they might as well keep to them- 
selves. — Chap. 4. 

WHAT WOMEN ARE. 

Yes ! these women are, first, what Nature makes them, and 
that is good : next, what we make them, and that is evil ! — 
Chap. 13. 

MOMENTS WHEN WE ARE LIKE THE FOX. 

"There are certain moments," said Tomlinson, looking 
pensively down at his kerseymere gaiters, " when we are like 
the fox in the nursery rhyme : ' The fox had a wound, he could 
not tell where ' — we feel extremely unhappy, and we cannot 
tell why ! — a dark and sad melancholy grows over us — we shun 



96 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

the face of man — we wrap ourselves in our thoughts Hke silk- 
worms — we mutter fag-ends of dismal songs — tears come into 
our eyes — we recall all the misfortunes that have ever hap- 
pened to us — we stoop in our gait and bury our hands in our 
breeches pockets — we say ' what is life ? — a stone to be shied 
into a horsepond ! ' We pine for some congenial heart — and 
have an itching desire to talk prodigiously about ourselves : all 
other subjects seem weary, stale and unprofitable — we feel as if 
a fly could knock us down and are in a humor to fall in love, 
and make a very sad piece of business of it. Yet with all this 
weakness we have, at these moments, a finer opinion of our- 
selves than we ever had before. We call our megrims the 
melancholy of a sublime soul — the yearnings of an indigestion 
we denominate yearnings after immortality — nay, sometimes * a 
proof of the nature of the soul ! ' May I find some biographer 
who understands such sensations well, and may he style those 
melting emotions the offspring of the poetical character, which, 
in reality, are the offspring of — a mutton-chop ! " — Chap. i8. 

REPENT, THE IDLEST WORD. 

"Repent!" said Clifford, fiercely; and his answer opened 
more of his secret heart, its motives, its reasonings, and its 
peculiarities, than were often discernible. " Repent — that is 
the idlest word in our language. No, — the moment I repent, 
that moment I reform ! Never can it seem to me an atone- 
ment for crime merely to regret it — my mind would lead me 
not to regret, but to repair ! "- — Chap. i8. 

LAW, THE APOTHECARY. 

" But if the town be the apothecary's shop, what, in the plan 
of your idea, stands for the apothecary ? " asked an old gentle- 
man, who perceived at what Tomlinson w'as driving. 

" The apothecary, sir," answered Augustus, stealing his 
notion from Clifford, and sinking his voice, lest the true pro- 
prietor should overhear him — Clifford was otherwise employed 
— "The apothecary, sir, is the Law! It is the law that 
stands behind the counter and dispenses to each man the dose 
he should take. To the poor, it gives bad drugs gratuitously ; 
to the rich, pills to stimulate the appetite : to the latter, pre- 
miums for luxury ; to the former, only speedy refuges from life ! 
Alas ! either your apothecary is but an ignorant quack, or his 
science itself is but in its cradle. He blunders as much as you 
would do if left to your own selection. Those who have re- 
course to him seldom speak gratefully of his skill. He relieves 
you, it is true — but of your money, not your malady ; and the 



FAUL CLIFFORD. 97 

only branch of his profession in which he is an adept is that 
which enables him to bleed you ! — O Mankind ! " continued 
Augustus, " what noble creatures you ought to be ! You have 
keys to all sciences, all arts, all mysteries, but one ! You have 
not a notion how you ought to be governed ! — you cannot frame 
a tolerable law for the life and soul of you ! You make your- 
selves as uncomfortable as you can by all sorts of galling and 
vexatious institutions, and you throw the blame upon ' Fate.' 
You lay down rules it is impossible to comprehend, much less 
to obey ; and you call each other monsters, because you can- 
not conquer the impossibility ! You invent all sorts of vices, 
under pretence of making laws for preserving virtue ; and the 
anomalous artificialities of conduct yourselves produce, you say 
you are born with ; — you make a machine by the perversest art 
you can think of, and you call it, with a sigh, ' Human Nature.' 
With a host of good dispositions struggling at your breasts, 
you insist upon libelling the Almighty, and declaring that He 
meant you to be wicked. Nay, you even call the man mis- 
chievous and seditious who begs and implores you to be one jot 
better than you are." — Chap. 18. 

THE DESIRE TO BE FINE. 

O thou divine spirit, that burnest in every breast, inciting 
each with the sublime desire to h& fine I that stirrest up the 
great to become little in order to seem greater, and that makest 
a duchess woo insult for a voucher ! Thou that delightest 
in so many shapes, multifarious, yet the same ; spirit that 
makest the high despicable, and the lord meaner than his 
valet ! — equally great whether thou cheatest a friend or cuttest 
a father ; lackering all thou touchest with a bright vulgarity, 
that thy votaries imagine to be gold ! — thou that sendest 
the few to fashionable balls and the many to fashionable 
novels ; — that smitest even Genius as well as Folly, making 
the favorites of the gods boast an acquaintance they have not 
with the graces of a mushroom peerage, rather than the 
knowledge they have of the Muses of an eternal Helicon ! — 
thou that leavest in the great ocean of our manners no dry 
spot for the foot of independence : — that pallest on the jaded 
eye with a moving and girdling panorama of daubed vile- 
nesses, and fritterest away the souls of free-born Britons into 
a powder smaller than the angels which dance in myriads on a 
pin's point. Whether, O spirit ! thou callest thyself Fashion, 
or Ton, or Ambition, or Vanity, or Cringing, or Cant, or any 
title equally lofty and sublime — would that from thy wings we 
could gain but a single plume ! — Chap. 21. 
7 



98 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

MISFORTUNES. 

Misfortunes are like the creations of Cadmus — they destroy 
one another ! — Chap. 25. 

A NOVEL. 

A novel is like a weatherglass, where the man appears out 
at one time, the woman at another. — Chap. 29. 

woman's wit. 
Believe me, a woman's wit is often no despicable coun- 
sellor. — Chap. 30. 

A SOIL MAY BE EFFACED. 

" Perhaps " — (and Clifford's dark eyes flashed with fire) — 
" you will yet hear of me, and not blush when you hear ! But " 
— (and his voice faltered, for Lucy, hiding her face with both 
hands, gave way to her tears and agitation) — " but, in one 
respect, you have conquered. I had believed that you could 
never be mine — that my past life had forever deprived me of 
that hope ! I now begin, with- a rapture that can bear me 
through all ordeals, to form a more daring vision. A soil may 
be effaced — an evil name may be redeemed — the past is not set 
and sealed, without the power of provoking what has been 
written. If I can win the right of meriting your mercy, I will 
throw myself on it without reserve ; till then, or till death, you 
will see me no more ! " — Chap. 30. 

LEGISLATION DESTROYS. 

My lord, it was the turn of a straw which made me what I 
am. Seven years ago I was sent to the House of Correction for 
an offence which I did not commit ; I went thither, a boy who 
had never infringed a single law — I came forth, in a few weeks, 
a man who was prepared to break all laws ! Whence was this 
change ? — \vas it my fault, or that of my condemners ? You 
had first wronged me by a punishment which I did not deserve 
— you wronged me yet more deeply, when (even had I been 
guilty of tlie first offence) I was sentenced to herd with 
hardened offenders, and graduates in vice and vice's methods 
of support. The laws themselves caused me to break the laws; 
first, by implanting within me the goading sense of injustice ; 
secondly, by submitting me to the corruption of example. 
Thus, I repeat — and I trust my words will sink solemnly into 
the hearts of all present — your legislation made me what I am ! 
and it now destroys me^ as it has destroyed thousands for being 
what it made 7ne / — Chap. 35. 



PAUL CLIFFORD. 99 



CIRCUMSTANCES MAKE GUILT. 

In a certain town of that Great Country where shoes are im- 
perfectly polished, and opinions are not prosecuted, there 
resided, twenty years after the date of Lucy Brandon's depart- 
ure from England, a man held in high and universal respect, 
not only for the rectitude of his conduct, but for the energies of 
his mind, and the purposes to which they were directed. If 
you asked who cultivated that waste .? the answer was — " Clif- 
ford ! " Who procured the establishment of that hospital ? — 
" Clifford ! " Who obtained the redress of such a public griev- 
ance ? — " Clifford ! " Who struggled for and won such a popu- 
lar benefit ? — " Clifford ! " In the gentler part of his projects 
and his undertakings, — in that part, above all, which concerned 
the sick or the necessitous, this useful citizen was seconded, or 
rather excelled, by a being over whose surpassing loveliness 
Time seemed to have flown with a gentle and charming wing. 
There was something remarkable and touching in the love 
which this couple (for the woman we refer to was Clifford's 
wife) bore to each other; like the plant on the plains of He- 
bron, the time which brought to that love an additional strength 
brought to it also a softer and a fresher verdure. One trait of 
mind especially characterized Clifford, — indulgence to the faults 
of others ! " Circumstances make guilt," he was wont to say : 
" let us endeavor to correct the circumstances^ before we rail 
against the guilt ! " His children promised to tread in the 
same useful and honorable path that he trod himself. Happy 
was considered that family which had the hope to ally itself 
with his. 

Such was the after-fate of Clifford and Lucy. Who will con- 
demn us for preferring the moral of that fate to the moral which 
is extorted from the gibbet and the hulks "i — which makes 
scarecrows, not beacons ; terrifies our weakness, not warns our 
reason. Who does not allow that it is better to repair than to 
perish, — better, too, to atone as the citizen than to repent as 
the hermit ! O John Wilkes ! Alderman of London, and Draw- 
cansir of Liberty, your life was not an iota too perfect, — your 
patriotism might have been infinitely purer ; your morals would 
have admitted indefinite amendment : you are no great favorite 
with us or with the rest of the world ; but you said one excel- 
lent thing, for which we look on you with benevolence, nay, 
almost with respect. We scarcely know whether to smile at its 
wit, or to sigh at its wisdom. Mark this truth, all ye gentlemen 
of England, who would make laws as the Romans made fasces 
— a bundle of rods with an axe in the middle ; mark it, and 



lOo WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

remember ! long may it live, allied with hope in ourselves, but 
with gratitude in our children ; — long after the book which it 
now " adorns " and " points " has gone to its dusty slumber ; — 
lono-, long after the feverish hand which now writes it down can 
defend or enforce it no more : — " The very worst use to 
WHICH YOU CAN PUT A MAN IS TO HANG HIM ! " — Final Chap- 






EUGENE ARAM. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Eugene Aram, the hero, a mysterious recluse. 

Roland Lester, the squire, a man of cultivated tastes. 

Geoffry Lester, his dissipated and unprincipled brother, who was mur- 
dered. 

Walter Lester, son of Geoffry Lester. High-spirited, bold, fiery, and 
impatient. Heir to the Lester estate. 

Madeline Lester, daughter of Roland Lester. She was beautiful and in- 
tellectual. Betrothed to Eugene Aram. 

Elinor Lester, younger daughter of Roland Lester. Like her sister, lovely 
but of a less elevated character than Madeline. She is finally betrothed 
to her cousin, Walter Lester. 

Peter Dealtry, the proprietor of " The Spotted Dog." 

Jacob Bunting, the ci-devant corporal. 

Richard Houseman, a robber. 



to sir walter scott, bart., etc., etc. 

Sir, 

It has long been my ambition to add some humble tribute to 
the offerings laid upon the shrine of your genius. At each suc- 
ceeding book that I have given to the world, I have paused to 
consider if it were worthy to be inscribed with your great name, 
and at each I have played the procrastinator, and hoped for 
that morrow of better desert which never came. But defliiat 
amnis, the time runs on — and I am tired of waiting for the ford 
which the tides refuse. I seize, then, the present opportunity, 
not as the best, but as the only one I can be sure of command- 
ing, to express that affectionate admiration with which you 
have inspired me in common with all your contemporaries, and 
which a French writer has not ungracefully termed " the hap- 
piest prerogative of genius." As a Poet, and as a Novelist, 
your fame has attained to that height in which praise has be- 
come superfluous ; but in the character of the writer there seems 
to me a yet higher claim to veneration than in that of the writ- 
ings. The example your genius sets us, who can emulate ? — 
the example your moderation bequeaths to us, who shall forget? 
That nature must indeed be gentle which has conciliated the 



102 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

envy that pursues intellectual greatness, and left without an 
enemy a man who has no living equal in renown. 
December 22, 1831. 

FROM PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 184O. 

The strange history of Eugene Aram had excited my interest 
and wonder long before the present work was composed or con- 
ceived. It so happened, that during Aram's residence at Lynn, 
his reputation for learning had attracted the notice of my 
grandfather — a country gentleman living in the same county, 
and of more intelligence and accomplishments than, at that day, 
usually characterized his class. Aram frequently visited at 
Heydon (my grandfather's house), and gave lessons, probably 
in no very elevated branches of erudition, to the younger mem- 
bers of the family. This I chanced to hear when I was on a 
visit in Norfolk, some two years before this novel was published, 
and it tended to increase the interest with which I had pre- 
viously speculated on the phenomena of a trial which, take it 
altogether, is perhaps the most remarkable in the register of 
English crime. I endeavored to collect such anecdotes of 
Aram's life and manners as tradition and hearsay still kept 
afloat. These anecdotes were so far uniform that they all con- 
curred in representing him as a person who, till the detection of 
the crime for which he was sentenced, had appeared of the 
mildest character and the most unexceptionable morals. An 
invariable gentleness and patience in his mode of tuition — qual- 
ities then very uncommon at schools — had made him so be- 
loved by his pupils at Lynn, that, in after life, there was 
scarcely one of them who did not persist in the belief of his in- 
nocence. His personal and moral peculiarities as described in 
these pages, are such as were related to me by persons who had 
heard him described by his contemporaries : the calm benign 
countenance — the delicate health — the thoughtful stoop — the 
noiseless step — the custom, not uncommon with scholars and 
absent men, of muttering to himself — a singular eloquence in 
conversation, when once roused from silence — an active tender- 
ness and charity to the poor, with whom he was always ready to 
share his own scanty means — an apparent disregard to money, 
except when employed in the purchase of books — an utter indif- 
ference to the ambition usually accompanying self-taught talent, 
whether to better the condition or to increase the repute ; — these 
and other traits of the character portrayed in the novel, are, as far 
as I can rely on my information, faithful to the features of the 
original. 

Before entering on this romance, I examined with some care 



EUGENE ARAM. 



103 



the probabilities of Aram's guilt ; for I need scarcely perhaps 
observe, that the legal evidence against him is extremely defi- 
cient — furnished almost entirely by one (Houseman) confessedly 
an accomplice of the crime, and a partner in the booty ; and 
that, in the present day, a man tried upon evidence so scanty 
and suspicious would unquestionably escape conviction. 

FROM PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1847. 

In point of composition Eugene Aram is, I think, entitled to 
rank amongst the best of my fictions. It somewhat humiliates 
me to acknowledge, tha«t neither practice nor study has enabled 
me to surpass a work written at a very early age, in the skilful 
construction and patient development of plot ; and though I 
have since sought to call forth higher and more subtle passions, 
I doubt if I have ever excited the two elementary passions of 
tragedy, viz., pity and terror, to the same degree. In mere 
style, too, Eugene Aram, in spite of certain verbal oversights, 
and defects in youthful taste (some of which I have endeavored 
to remove from the present edition), appears to me unexcelled 
by any of my later writings, at least in what I have always 
studied as the main essential of style in narrative, viz., its har- 
mony with the subject selected, and the passions to be moved ; 
— while it exceeds them all in the minuteness and fidelity of its 
descriptions of external nature. 

DESCRIPTION OF EUGENE ARAM. 

" Ye mystic lights," said he soliloquizing : — " worlds upon 
worlds — infinite — incalculable. — Bright defiers of rest and 
change, rolling forever above our petty sea of mortality, as, 
wave after wave, we fret forth our little life and sink into the 
black abyss ; — can we look upon you, note your appointed order, 
and your unvarying course, and not feel that we are indeed the 
poorest puppets of an all-pervading and resistless destiny ? 
Shall w^e see throughout creation each marvel fulfilling its pre- 
ordered fate — no wandering from its orbit — no variation in its 
seasons — and yet imagine that the Arch-ordainer will hold back 
the tides he has sent from their unseen source, at our miserable 
bidding ? Shall we think that our prayers can avert a doom 
woven with the skein of events ? To change a panicle of our 
fate, might change the fate of millions ! Shall the link forsake 
the chain, and yet the chain be unbroken ? Away, then, with 
our vague repinings and our blind demands. All must walk 
onward to their goal, be he the wisest who looks not one step 
behind. The colors of our existence were doomed before our 
birth — our sorrows and our crimes ; — millions of ages back, when 



104 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

this hoary earth was peopled by other kinds, yea ! ere its atoms 
had formed one layer of its present soil, the eternal and the all- 
seeing Ruler of the Universe — Destiny, or God — had here fixed 
the moment of our birth and the limits of our career. — What 
then is crime ? — Fate ! What life ? — Submission." 

Such were the strange and dark thoughts which, constituting 
a part indeed of his established creed, broke over Aram's mind. 
He sought for a fairer subject for meditation, and Madeline 
Lester rose before him. 

Eugene Aram was a man whose whole life seemed to have 
been one sacrifice to knowledge. What is termed pleasure had 
no attraction for him. — From the mature manhood at which he 
had arrived, he looked back along his youth, and recognized no 
youthful folly. Love he had hitherto regarded with a cold 
though not an incurious eye ; intemperance had never lured him 
to a momentary self-abandonment. Even itie innocent relaxa- 
tions with which the austerest minds relieve their accustomed 
toils had had no power to draw him from his beloved researches. 
The delight monstrari digito ; the gratification of triumphant 
wisdom ; the whispers of an elevated vanity ; existed not for his 
self-dependent and solitary heart. He was one of those earnest 
and high-wrought enthusiasts who now are almost extinct upon 
earth, and whom romance has not hitherto attempted to portray ; 
men not uncommon in the last century, who were devoted to 
knowledge, yet disdainful of its fame. — Book J. Chap. 4. 

THE LIFE OF THE PASSIONS. 

The passions are at once our masters and our deceivers ; — 
they urge us onward, yet present no limit to our progress. The 
farther we proceed, the more dim and shadowy grows the goal. 
It is impossible for a man who leads the life of the world, the 
life of the passions, ever to experience content. For the life 
of the passions is that of a perpetual desire ; but a state of con- 
tent is the absence of all desire. Thus philosophy has become 
another name for mental quietude ; and all wisdom points to a 
life of intellectual indifference, as the happiest that earth can 
bestow. — Book I. Chap. 5. 

THE ENTHUSIASTS OF LEARNING. 

It may be noted, that the enthusiasts of learning and reverie 
have, at one time or another in their lives, been, of all the 
tribes of men, the most keenly susceptible to love ; their solitude 
feeds their passion ; and deprived, as they usually are, of the 
more hurried and vehement occupations of life, when love is 
once admitted to their hearts, there is no counter-check to its 



EUGENE ARAM. 105 

emotions, and no escape from its excitation. Aram, too, had 
just arrived at that age when a man usually feels a sort of re- 
vulsion in the current of his desires. At that age, those who 
have hitherto pursued love, begin to grow alive to ambition ; 
those who have been slaves to the pleasures of life, awaken 
from the dream, and direct their desires to its interests. And 
in the same proportion, they who till then have wasted the prodi- 
gal fervors of youth upon a sterile soil ; who have served 
ambition, or, like Aram, devoted their hearts to wisdom ; relax 
from their ardor, look back on the departed years with regret, 
and commence in their manhood, the fiery pleasures and de- 
lirious follies which are only pardonable in youth. In short, as 
in every human pursuit there is a certain vanity, and as every 
acquisition contains within itself the seed of disappointment, 
so there is a period of life when we pause from the pursuit, and 
are discontented with the acquisition. We then look around us 
for something new — again follow — and are again deceived. 
Few men throughout life are the servants of one desire. When 
we gain the middle of the bridge of our mortality, different ob- 
jects from those which attracted us upward almost invariably 
lure us to the descent. Happy they who exhaust in the former 
part of the journey all the foibles of existence ! But how differ- 
ent is the crude and evanescent love of that age when thought 
has not given intensity and power to the passions, from the love 
which is ie\t, felt for the Jtrst time, in maturer but still youthful 
years ! — Book I. Chap. 7. 

PITY AND ADMIRATION. 

There is not perhaps a stronger feeling in the world than pity, 
when united with admiration. — Book I. Chap. 7. 

THE CIRCLE OF HAPPINESS. 

" The circle of happiness we can create is formed more by our 
moral than our mental qualities. A warm heart, though ac- 
companied but by a mediocre understanding, is even more 
likely to promote the happiness of those around, than are the 
absorbed and abstract, though kindly powers of a more elevated 
genius ; but" (observing Lester about to interrupt him), " let us 
turn from this topic, — let us turn from man's weakness to the 
glories of the mother-nature, from which he sprung." — Book I. 
Chap. 7. 

heart's inclination TO LOOK UPWARD. 

There lingers about the human heart a strong inclination to 
look upward — to revere : in this inclination lies the source of 



io6 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULIVER. 

religion, of loyalty, and also of the worship and immortality 
which are rendered so cheerfully to the great of old. And in 
truth it is a divine pleasure to admire ! Admiration seems in 
some measure to appropriate to ourselves the qualities it honors 
in others. We wed, — we root ourselves to the natures we so 
love to contemplate, and their life grows a part of our own. 
Thus, when a great man, who has engrossed our thoughts, our 
conjectures, our homage dies, a gap seems suddenly left in the 
world ; a wheel in the mechanism of our own being appears 
abruptly stilled ; a portion of ourselves, and not our worst por- 
tion, for how many pure, high, generous sentiments it contains, 
dies with him ! Yes ! it is this love, so rare, so exalted, and 
so denied to all ordinary men, which is the especial privilege of 
greatness, whether that greatness be shown in wisdom, in enter- 
prise, in virtue, or even, till the world learns better, in the more 
daring and lofty order of crime. A Socrates may claim it to- 
day — a Napoleon to-morrow ; nay, a brigand chief, illustrious in 
the circle in which he lives, may call it forth no less powerfully 
than the generous failings of a Byron, or the sublime excellence 
of the greater Milton. — Book /.' Chap. 8. 

FEELINGS OF DISAPPOINTED LOVE. 

There is something in those bitter feelings, which are the off- 
spring of disappointed love ; something in the intolerable 
anguish of well-founded jealousy, that when the first shock is 
over, often hardens, and perhaps elevates the character. The 
sterner powers that we arouse within us to combat a passion 
that can no longer be worthily indulged, are never afterwards 
wholly allayed. Like the allies which a nation summons to its 
bosom to defend it from its foes, they expel the enemy only to 
find a settlement for themselves. The mind of every man who 
C07iqucf's an unfortunate attachment, becomes stronger than be- 
fore ; it may be for evil, it may be for good, but the capacities 
for either are more vigorous and collected. — Book I. Chap. 12. 

WHEN SLEEP FORSAKES. 

It is a dark epoch in a man's life when Sleep forsakes him ; 
when he tosses to and fro, and Thought will not be silenced ; 
when the drug and draught are the courters of stupefaction, 
not sleep ; when the down pillow is as a knotted log; when the 
eyelids close but with an effort, and there is a drag and a 
weight, and dizziness in the eyes at morn. Desire, and Grief, 
and Love, these are the young man's torments, but they are 
the creatures of Time ; Time removes them as it brings, and 
the vigils we keep, " while the evil days come not," if weary, 



EUGENE ARAM. 



107 



are brief and few. But Memory, and Care, and Ambition, and 
Avarice, these are the demon-gods that defy the Time that 
fathered them. The worldlier passions are the growth of ma- 
ture years, and their grave is dug but in our own. As the dark 
Spirits in the Northern tale, that watch against the coming of 
one of a brighter and holier race, lest, if he seize them un- 
awares, he bind them prisoners in his chain, they keep ward at 
night over the entrance of that deep cave — the human heart — 
and scare away the angel Sleep ! — Book I. Chap 12. 

LOVE, ALL THAT IS NOBLE. 

" Love ! " exclaimed Madeline. " Grant me patience ! — Love ! 
It was but now I thought myself honored by the affection you 
said you bore me. At this instant, I blush to have called 
forth a single sentiment in one who knows so little what love 
is ! Love ! — methought that word denoted all that was high 
and noble in human nature — confidence, hope, devotion, sacri^ 
fice of all thought of self ! but you would make it the type and 
concentration of all that lowers and debases ! — suspicion — cavil 
— fear — selfishness in all its shapes! Out on you — lovef^^ — 
Book I. Chap. 12. 

DIFFICULT FOR MEN OF RANK TO BECOME ILLUSTRIOUS. 

It is a more difficult matter for men of high rank to become 
illustrious to posterity, than for persons in a sterner and more 
wholesome walk of life. Even the greatest among the distin- 
guished men of the patrician order, suffer in the eyes of the after 
age for the very qualities, mostly dazzling defects, or brilliant 
eccentricities, which made them most popularly remarkable in 
their day. Men forgive Burns his amours and his revellings 
with greater ease than they will forgive Bolingbroke and Byron 
for the same offences. — Book II. Chap. 2. 

EVERY TIE OPENS CHANNELS TO GRIEF. 

"Yet it seems to me," said Aram, '* a truth easy of proof; if 
we love, we place our happiness in others. The moment we 
place our happiness in others comes uncertainty, but uncertainty 
is the bane of happiness. Children are the source of anxiety 
to their parents ; — his mistress to the lover. Change, accident, 
death, all menace us in each person whom we regard. Every 
new tie opens new channels by which grief can invade us ; but, 
you will say, by which joy also can flow in ; — granted ! But in 
human life is there not more grief than joy .? What is it that 
renders the balance even .'' What makes the staple of our hap- 
piness, — endearing to us the life at which we should otherwise 



io3 ir/T AXD WISDOM OF BULWER. 

repine? It is the mere passive, yet stirring, consciousness of 
life itself ! — of the sun and the air of the physical being; but 
this consciousness every emotion disturbs. Yet could you add 
to its tranquillity an excitement that never exhausts itself, — that 
becomes refreshed, not sated, with every new possession, then 
you would obtain happiness. There is only one excitement of 
this divine order, — that of intellectual culture. Behold now my 
theory ! Examine it — it contains no fiaw. But if," renewed 
Aram after a pause, " a man is subject to fate solely in himself, 
not in others, he soon hardens his mind against all fear, and 
prepares it for all events. A little jihilosophy enables him to 
bear bodily pain, or the common infirmities of flesh : by a phi- 
losophy somewhat deeper, he can conquer the ordinary reverses 
of fortune, the dread of shame, and the last calamity of death. 
But what philosophy could ever thoroughly console him for 
the ingratitude of a friend, the worthlessness of a child, the 
death of a mistress ? Hence, only when he stands alone, can 
a man's soul say to Fate, 'I defy thee.' " — Book II. Chap. 3. 

ERRORS OF LIFE. 

" There is one circumstance," added Aram after a pause, 
" that should diminish our respect for renown. Errors of life, 
as well as foibles of character, are often the real enhancers of 
celebrity. Without his errors, I doubt whether Henri Qitatre 
would have become the idol of a people. How many W'har- 
tons has the world known, who, deprived of their frailties, had 
been inglorious ! The light that you so nuich admire, reaches 
you only through the distance of time, on account of tlie angles 
and unevenness of the body whence it emanates. Were the 
surface of the moon smooth, it would be invisible." — Book II. 
Chap. 4. 

RELIGION IN LOVE. 

To me there seems a religion in love, and its very foundation 
is in faith. — Book IV. Chap. 4. 

EXAGGERATION OF SENTIMENT. 

We do wrong when we censure a certain exaggeration in the 
sentiments of those who love. True passion is necessarilv height- 
ened by its very ardor to an elevation that seems extravagant 
only to those who cannot feel it. The lofty language of a hero 
is a part of his character ; without that largeness of idea, he 
had not been a hero. With love, it is the same as with glory : 
what common minds would call natural in sentiment, merely 
because it is homely, is not natural, except to tamed affections. 



EUGENE ARAM. I09 

That is a very poor, nay, a very course, love in which the imagi- 
nation makes not the greater part. And the frenchman who 
censured the love of his mistress because it was so rnixed with 
the imagination, quarrelled with the body for the soul which in- 
spired and preserved '\\..—Book IV. Chap. 4. 

SOMETHING HIDDEN. 

Goethe has said somewhere that each of us, the best as the 
worst, hides within him something— SK^me feehng, some remem- ' 
brance that, if known, would make you hate him. No doubt 
the saving is exaggerated ; but still, what a gloomy and profound 
sublimity in the idea !— what a new insight it gives into the 
hearts of the common herd !— with what a strange interest it 
mav inspire us for the humblest, the tritest passenger that 
shoulders us in the great thoroughfare of life I C^ne of the 
greatest pleasures in the world is to walk alone, and at night 
(while they are yet crowded), through the longlamp-ht streets of 
this huge metropolis. There, even more than in the silence of 
woods and fields, seems to me the source of endless, various 
meditation.— Z^W^ IV. Chap. 5. 

AMBITION GIVES UNHAPPY MOMENTS. 

Ambition, like any other passion, gives us unhappy moments ; 
but it gives us also an animated life. In its pursuit, the minor 
evils of the world are not felt; little crosses, little vexations do 
■ not disturb us. Like men who walk in sleep, we are absorbed 
in one powerful dream, and do not even know the obstacles in 
our way, or the dangers that surround us ; in a word, we have 
no private life. All that is merely domestic, the anxiety and the 
loss which fret other men, which blight the happiness of other 
men, are not felt by us : we are wholly public ;-so that if we 
lose much comfort, we escape much q^xq.—Boo/z IV. L/iap. 5. 

ON THE BRIDGE OF THE THAMES. 

Aram had now gained one of the bridges " that arch the royal 
Thames " and, in no time dead to scenic attraction, he there 
paused for a moment, and looked along the dark river that 

rushed below. .,, , 

Oh God ! how many wild and stormy hearts have stilled 
themselves on that spot, for one dread instant of thought--of 
calculation-of resolve— one instant, the last of life Look at 
night along the course of that stately river, how g oriously it 
seems to mock the passions of them that dwell beside it. Un- 
changed—unchanging—all around it quick death, and troubled 
life; itself smiling up to the gray stars, and singing from its 



no WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

deep heart as it bounds along. Beside it is the senate, proud of 
its solemn triflers ; and there the cloistered tomb, in which, as 
the loftiest honor, some handful of the fiercest of the strugglers 
may gain forgetfulness and a grave ! There is no moral to a 
great city like the river that washes its walls. — Book IV. Chap. 6. 

AFFECTION LOVELY. 

If there be anything thoroughly lovely in the human heart, it 
is affection ! All that makes hope elevated, or fear generous, 
belongs to the capacity of loving. For my own part, I do not 
wonder, in looking over the thousand creeds and sects of men, 
that so many religionists have traced their theology — that so 
many moralists have wrought their system — from love. The 
errors thus originated have something in them that charms us, 
even while we smile at the theology, or while we neglect the 
system. What a beautiful fabric would be human nature — what 
a divine guide would be human reason — if love were indeed the 
stratum of the one, and the inspiration of the other ! — Book 
IV. Chap. 8. 

LOVE IN RETIREMENT. 

Certainly, love assumes a more touching and earnest sem- 
blance, when we find it in some retired and sequestered hollow 
of the world ; when it is not mixed up with the daily frivolities 
and petty emotions of which a life passed in cities is so neces- 
sarily composed : we cannot but believe it a deeper and a more 
absorbing passion ; perhaps we are not always right in the be- 
lief. Had one of the order of angels to whom a knowledge of 
the future, or the seraphic penetration into the hidden heart of 
man, is forbidden, stayed his wings over the lovely valley in 
which the main scene of our history has been cast, no spectacle 
might have seemed to him more appropriate to that pastoral spot, 
or more elevated in the character of its tenderness above the 
fierce and short-lived passions of the ordinary world, than the 
love that existed between Madeline and her betrothed. Their 
natures seemed so suited to each other! the solemn and iindiur- 
nal mood of the one was reflected back in hues so gentle, and 
yet so faithful, from the purer, but scarce less thoughtful charac- 
ter of the other! Their sympathies ran through the same 
channel, and mingled in a common fount ; and whatever was 
dark and troubled in the breast of Aram, was now suffered not 
to appear. Since his return, his mood was brighter and more 
tranquil ; and he seemed better fitted to appreciate and respond 
to the peculiar tenderness of Madeline's affection. There are 
some stars which, viewed with the naked eye, seem one, but in 



EUGENE ARAM. in 

reality are two separate orbs revolving round each other, and 
drinking, each from each, a separate yet united existence : — 
such stars seem a type of them. — Book IV. Chap. 8. 

TEMPERS UNTOUCHED BY VICISSITUDES. 

Let the world wag as it will, there are some tempers which its 
vicissitudes never reach. Nothing makes a picture of distress 
more sad than the portrait of some individual sitting indifferently 
looking on in the background. This was a secret Hogarth 
knew well. Mark his death-bed scenes. — Poverty and Vice 
worked up into horror — and the physicians in the corner wrang- 
ling for the fee ! — or the child playing with the coffin — or the 
nurse filching what fortune, harsh, yet less harsh than humanity, 
might have left. In the melancholy depth of humor that 
steeps both our fancy and our heart in the immortal romance of 
Cervantes, (for, how' profoundly melancholy is it to be compelled 
by one gallant folly to laugh at all that is gentle, and brave, and 
wise, and generous !) nothing grates on us more than when — 
last scene of all — the poor knight lies dead, — his exploits for- 
ever over — forever dumb his eloquent discourses : that when, 
I say, we are told that, despite of his grief, even little Sancho 
did not eat or drink the less : these touches open to us the real 
world, it is true ; but it is not the best part of it. — Book V. 
Chap. 3. 

TRIUMPH OVER WEAKNESS. 

We may triumph over all weakness, but that of the affections ! 
Perhaps in this dreary and haggard interval of time, these two 
persons loved each other more purely, more strongly, more 
enthusiastically, than they had ever done at any former period 
of their eventful history. 'Over the hardest stone, as over the 
softest turf, the green moss w/// force its verdure and sustain its 
life [—Book V. Chap. 3. 

A PICTURE OF HUMAN LIFE. 

A thought comes over us, sometimes, in our career of pleas- 
ure, or the troubled exultation of our ambitious pursuits : a 
thought comes over us, like a cloud ; — that around us and about 
us Death — Shame — Crime — Despair, are busy at their work. 
I have read somewhere of an enchanted land, where the inmates 
walked along voluptuous gardens, and built palaces, and heard 
music, and made merry : while around, and within the land, 
were deep caverns, where the gnomes and the fiends dwelt : 
and ever and anon their groans and laughter, and the sounds of 
their unutterable toils or ghastly revels, travelled to the upper 



112 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

air, mixing in an awful strangeness with the summer festivity 
and buoyant occupation of those above. And this is the picture 
of human life ! I'hese reflections of the maddening disparities 
of the world are dark, but salutary : — 

*' They wrapt our thoughts at banquets in the shroud ; " 

but we are seldom sadder without being also wiser men ! — Book 
V. Chap 5. 

THOUGHT OF AN IMMORTALITY. 

As we grow older, and sometimes a hope, sometimes a friend, 
vanishes from our path, the thought of an immortality will press 
itself forcibly upon us ! and there, by little and little, as the ants 
pile, grain after grain, the garners of a future sustenance, we 
learn to carry our hopes, and harvest, as it were, our wishes. 

" Our cousins, then, were happy. Happy, for they loved one 
another entirely ; and on those who do so love, I sometimes 
think that, barring physical pain and extreme poverty, the ills of 
life fall with but idle malice. Yes, they were happy, in spite of 
the past and in defiance of the future." 

" I am satisfied, then," said my friend, — " and your tale is 
fairly done ! " 

And now, reader, farewell ! If sometimes, as thou hast gone 
with me to this our parting spot, thou hast suffered thy compan- 
ion to win the mastery over thine interest, to flash now on thy 
convictions, to touch now thy heart, to guide thy hope, to excite 
thy terror, to gain, it may be, to the sources of thy tears — then 
is there a tie between thee and me which cannot readily be 
broken ! And when thou hearest the malice that wrongs affect 
the candor which should judge, shall he not find in thy sympa- 
thies the defence, or in thy charity the indulgence, — of a friend ? 
— The End. 



NIGHT AND MORNING. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Rev. Caleb Price, "a sociable, agreeable, careless, half-starved parson." 

Philip Beaufort, Sr., " easy, thoughtless, and good natured," with feelings 
infinitely better than his principles. Heir to his uncle's vast estates, 
and secretly married, at the beginning of the narrative, to Catherine 
Morton, a motherless child of sixteen. 

Robert Beaufort, younger brother of Philip Beaufort, Sr. A man of the 
world, "sober, decorous and ambitious; a face of smiles and a heart of 
ice." 

Mrs. Robert Beaufort, "languid, silent, perfectly dressed and insipid." 

Arthur, son of Robert Beaufort. 

Camilla, daughter of Robert Beaufort. 

Philip and Sidney, sons of Philip Beaufort. The former self-willed, the 
latter self-loving. 

Lord Lilburne, a dissipated do-nothing. Brother of Mrs. Robert Beau- 
fort. 

Roger Morton, a tradesman, brother of Catherine Morton, who married 
Philip Beaufort. 

Christopher Plaskwith, brother of Mrs. Roger Morton. Bookseller, and 
editor of " The Mercury." 

Plimmins, assistant editor of "The Mercury." 

William Gawtry, alias Monsieur Love. A German charlatan, and 
counterfeiter. 

Serrion Gawtry, an old blind man. Father to William Gawtry. 

Fanny, a poor child befriended by William Gawtry. She marries Philip 
Beaufort, Jr. 

Eugenie de Merville, a young widow distinguished in literature. 

Mr. Blackwell, Robert Beaufort's lawyer. 

Mr. Barlow, lawyer to Philip Beaufort, Jr. 

Mr. Sharp, a detective. 

Mr. Spencer, "a soft-hearted, soft-headed man," a confirmed valetudina- 
rian, who adopts Sidney Beaufort. 



PREFACE. 

In this Novel of Night and Morning I have had various 
ends in view —subordinate, I grant, to the higher and more 
durable morality which belongs to the Ideal, and instructs us 
playfully while it interests, in the passions, and through the 
heart. 

First. — To deal fearlessly with that universal unsoundness in 
social justice which makes distinctions so marked and iniquitous 
between Vice and Crime — viz., between the corrupting habits 
8 



114 WI.T AND WISDOM OF BULIVER. 

and the violent act — which scarce touches the former with the 
Hghtest twig in the fasces — which lifts against the latter the 
edge of the Lictor's axe. Let a child steal an apple in sport, 
let a starveling steal a roll in despair, and Law conducts them 
to the prison, for evil commune to mellow them for the gibbet. 
But let a man spend one apprenticeship from youth to old age 
in vice — let him devote a fortune, perhaps colossal, to the 
^vholesale demoralization of his kind — and he may be surrounded 
with the adulation of the so-called virtuous, and be served upon 
its knee, by that Lackey — the Modern World ! I say not that 
Law can, or that Law should, reach the Vice as it does the 
Crime ; but I say, that Opinion may be more than the servile 
shadow of Law. I impress not here, as in " Paul Clifford," a 
material moral to work its effect on the Journals, at the Hust- 
ings, through Constituents, and on Legislation ; — I direct my- 
self to a channel less active, more tardy, but as sure — to the 
Conscience that reigns, elder and superior to all Law, in men's 
hearts and souls ; — I utter boldly and loudly a truth, if not all 
untold, murmured feebly and f^teringly before — sooner or later 
— it will find its way into the judgment and the conduct, and 
shape out a tribunal which requires not robe or ermine. 

Second. — In this work I have sought to lift the mask from the 
timid selfishness which too often with us bears the name of 
Respecfability. Purposely avoiding all attraction that may savor 
of extravagance, patiently subduing every tone and every hue 
to the aspect of those whom we meet daily in our thoroughfares, 
I have shown in Robert Beaufort the man of decorous phrase 
and bloodless action — the systematic self-server — in whom the 
world forgive the lack of all that is generous, warm, and noble, 
in order to respect the passive acquiescence in methodical con- 
ventions and hollow forms. And how common such men are 
with us in this century, and how inviting and how necessary 
their delineation, maybe seen in this, — that the popular and 
pre-eminent Observer of the age in which we live, has since 
placed their prototype in vigorous colors upon imperishable 
canvas.* 

There is yet another object with which I have identified my 
tale. I trust that I am not insensible to such advantages as 
arise from the diffusion of education really sound, and knowl- 
edge reallv available ; — for these, as the right of my country- 
me^n, I have contended always. But of late years there has been 
danger that what ought to be an important truth may be per- 
verted into a pestilent fallacy. Whether for rich or for poor, 

* Need I sav that I allude to the " Pecksniff " of Mr. Dickens > 



1 



NIGHT AND MORNING, . 115 

disappointment must ever await the endeavor to give knowledge 
without labor, and experience without trial. Cheap literature 
and popular treatises do not in themselves suffice to fit the 
nerves of man for the strife below, and lift his aspirations, in 
healthful confidence above. He who seeks to divorce toil from 
knowledge deprives knowledge of its most valuable property, — 
the strengthening of the mind by exercise. We learn what 
really braces and elevates us only in proportion to the e^or^ it 
costs us. Nor is it in Books alone, nor in Books chiefly, that 
we are made conscious of our strength as Men. Life is the great 
Schoolmaster, Experience the mighty Volume. He who has 
made one stern sacrifice of self, has acquired more than he will 
ever glean from the odds-and-ends of popular philosophy : And 
the man, the least scholastic, may be more robust in the power 
that is knowledge, and approach nearer to the Arch-Seraphim, 
than Bacon himself, if he cling fast to two simple maxims — " Be 
honest in Temptation, and in Adversity believe in God." Such 
moral, attempted before in " Eugene Aram," I have enforced 
more directly here ; and out of such convictions I have created 
hero and heroine, placing them in their primitive and natural 
characters, with aid more from life than books — from courage 
the one, from affection the other — amidst the feeble Hermaph- 
rodites of our sickly civilization ; — examples of resolute Man- 
hood and tender Womanhood. 

The opinions I have here put forth are not in fashion at this 
day. But I have never consulted the popular any more than 
the sectarian. Prejudice. Alone and unaided, I have hewn out 
my way, from first to last, by the force of my own convictions. 
The corn springs up in the field centuries after the first sower 
is forgotten. Works may perish with the workman ; but, if 
truthful, their results are in the works of others, imitating, 
borrowing, enlarging, and improving, in the everlasting Cycle 
of Industry and Thought. 
Knebworth, 1845. 

FORM OF THE DEAD. 

What a strange thing it does seem, that that very form which 
we prized so charily, for which we prayed the winds to be gen- 
tle, which we lapped from the cold in our arms, from whose 
footstep we would have removed a stone, should be suddenly 
thrust out of sight — an abomination that the earth must not look 
upon — a despicable loathsomeness, to be concealed and to be 
forgotten ! And this same composition of bone and muscle that 
was yesterday so strong — which men respected, and women 
loved, and children clunjr to — to-day so lamentably powerless, 



ii6 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER, 

unable to defend or protect those who lay nearest to its heart ; 
its riches wrested from it, its wishes spat upon, its influence ex- 
piring with its last sigh ! A breath from its lips making all that 
mighty difference between what it was and what it is ! — Book I. 
Chap. 5. 

RIGHT IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD. 

Mr. Robert Beaufort, indeed, always meant to do what was 
right — in the eyes of the world I He had no other rule of action 
but that which the world supplied : his religion was decorum — 
his sense of honor was regard to opinion. His heart was a dial 
to which the world was the sun : when the great eye of the pub- 
lic fell on it, it answered every purpose that a heart could an- 
swer ; but when that eye was invisible, the dial was mute — a 
piece of brass and nothing more. — Book I. Chap. 6. 

SLEEP SECURE IN SHADOWS. 

Neither he nor Catherine ever contemplated separation or 
death. Alas ! how all of us, when happy, sleep secure in the 
dark shadows, which ought to warn us of the sorrows that are 
to come ! — Book I. Chap. 6. 

AN OUNCE OF HELP. 

When a person's down in the world, I think an ounce of help 
is better than a pound of preaching. — Book I. Chap. 6. 

SLEEP OF THE FATHERLESS .BOY. 

" Poor lad ! — he looks pale ! " muttered the man, and he 
knocked the weed from his pipe, which he placed gently in his 
pocket. " Perhaps the smoke was too much for him — he seems 
ill and thin ; " and he took the boy's long lean fingers in his 
own. ''His cheek is hollow! — what do I know but it may be 
with fasting? Pooh! I was a brute. Hush, coachee, hush! 

don't talk so loud, and be d d to you — he will certainly be 

off ; " and the man softly and creepingly encircled the boy's 
waist with his huge arm. " Now, then, to shift his head ; so — 
so — that's right." Philip's sallow cheek and long hair were 
now tenderly lapped on the soliloquist's bosom. " Poor wretch ! 
he smiles , perhaps he is thinking of home, and the butterflies 
he ran after when he was an urchin — they never come back, 
those days ; — never — never — never ! I think the wind veers 
to the east ; he may catch cold ; " — and with that, the man 
sliding the head for a moment, and with the tenderness of 
a woman, from his breast to his shoulder, unbuttoned his coat 
(as he replaced the weight, no longer unwelcome, in its former 



NIGHT AND MORNING. 1 17 

part), and drew the lappets closely round the slender frame of 
the sleeper, exposing his own sturdy breast — for he wore no 
waistcoat — to the sharpening air. Thus cradled on that 
stranger's bosom, wrapped from the present, and dreaming 
perhaps — while a heart scorched by fierce and terrible struggles 
with life and sin made his pillow — of a fair and unsullied future, 
slept the fatherless and friendless boy. — Book I. Chap. 6. 

HOLINESS IN mother's LOVE. 

There is so divine a holiness in the love of a mother, that, no 
matter how the tie that binds her to the child was formed, she 
becomes, as it were, consecrated and sacred ; and the past is 
forgotten, and the world and its harsh verdicts swept away, 
when that love alone is visible ; and the God, who watches over 
the little one, sheds his smile over the human deputy, in whose 
tenderness there breathes His own ! — Book I. Chap. 8. 

THE DRAGON TRAMPLES THE SAINT. 

Oh, Mr. Robert Beaufort ! Mr. Robert Beaufort ! could your 
prudent, scheming, worldly heart but feel what devil's tricks 
your wealth was playing with a son who if poor had been the 
pride of the Beauforts ! On one side of our pieces of gold we 
see the saint trampling down the dragon : — False emblem ! 
Reverse it on the coin ! In the real use of the gold, it is the 
dragon who tramples down the saint ! — Book I. Chap. 9. 

FRIENDSHIP ALMOST A PASSION. 

There is a certain age, before the love for the sex com- 
mences, when the feeling of friendship is almost a passion. You 
see it constantly in girls and boys at school. It is the first 
vague craving of the heart after the master food of human life — 
Love. It has its jealousies, and humors, and caprices, like love 
\\'^€ii.—Book II. Chap. 8. 

THE FLIGHT OF CONSCIENCE. 

** And I — /will never care for a human being again." 
He bowed his head over his hand ; and when he rose, his 
heart felt to him like stone. It seemed as if Conscience herself 
had fled from his soul on the wings of departed Love. — Book II. 
Chap. II. 

QUICK INSIGHT OF CHILDREN. 

" Do not strike him, papa ! — let him have his brother ! " 
Mr. Beaufort's arm fell to his side : kneeling before him, and 
by the outcast's side, was his own young daughter; she had 



1,8 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

crept into the room unobserved, when her father entered. 
Through the dim shadows, relieved only by the red and fitful 
gleam of the fire, he saw her fair meek face looking up wistfully 
at his own, with tears of excitement, and perhaps of pity — for 
children have a quick insight into the reality of grief in those not 
far removed from their own years — glistening in her soft eyes. 
Philip looked round bewildered, and he saw that face which 
seemed to him, at such a time, like the face of an angel. — Book 
I J. Chap. II. 

JUDGING THE CHARACTERS OF CHILDREN. 

Alas, poor Catherine ! when you fancied that Philip was the 
one sure to force his way into fortune, and Sidney the one most 
helpless, how ill did you judge of the human heart ! It was that 
very strength in Philip's nature which tempted the winds that 
scattered the blossoms, and shook the stem to its roots ; while 
the lighter and frailer nature bent to the gale, and bore trans- 
planting to a happier soil. If a parent read these pages, let him 
pause and think well on the characters of his children ; let him 
at once fear and hope the most for the one whose passions and 
whose temper lead to a struggle with the world. That same 
world is a tough wrestler, and has a bear's gripe for the poor. — 
Book II. Chap. 12. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE MORAL WORLD. 

So, O dark mystery of the Moral World ! — so, unlike the 
order of the External Universe, glide together, side by side, the 
shadowy steeds of Night and Morning. Examine life in its 
own world ; confound not that world, the inner one, the practical 
one, with the more visible, yet airier and less substantial sys- 
tem, doing homage to the sun, to whose throne, afar in the in- 
finite space, the human heart has no wings to flee. In life, the 
mind and the circumstances give the true seasons, and regulate 
the darkness and the light. Of two men standing on the same 
foot of earth, the one revels in the joyous noon, the other shud- 
ders in the solitude of night. For Hope and Fortune the day- 
star is ever shining. For Care and Penury, Night changes 
not with the ticking of the clock, nor with the shadow on the 
dial. Morning for the heir, night for the houseless, and God's 
eye over both. — Book II. Chap. 12. 

OF USE IN THE WORLD. 

" No ; I gave him my money, not my soul. I turned from his 
door, with a few shillings that he himself thrust into my hand, 
and walked on — I cared not whither — out of the town, into the 



NIGHT AND MORNING. 119 

fields — till night came ; and then, just as I suddenly entered on 
the high-road, many miles away, the moon rose ; and I saw, by 
the hedge-side, something that seemed like a corpse; it was an 
old beggar, in the last state of raggedness, disease, and famine. 
He had laid himself down to die. I shared with him what I 
had, and helped him to a little inn. As he crossed the thresh- 
old, he turned round and blessed me. Do you know, the mo- 
ment I heard that blessing, a stone seemed rolled away from my 
heart. I said to myself, — 'What then! even /can be of use to 
some one ; and I am better off than that old man, for I have 
youth and health." — Book III. Chap. 2. 

MEN REPRESENTATIVES OF THINGS. 

He had not yet lived long enough to be aware that Men are 
sometimes the Representatives of Things ; that what the scytale 
was to the Spartan hero, a sheriff's writ often is to a Waterloo 
medallist ; that a Bow Street runner will enter the foulest den 
where Murder sits with his fellows, and pick out his prey with 
the beck of his forefinger. That, in short, the thing called Law, 
once made tangible and present, rarely fails to palsy the fierce 
heart of the thing called Crime. For Law is the symbol of all 
mankind reared against One Foe — the Man of Crime. — Book III. 
Chap. 5. 

FORMS OF courage. 

It is a popular error to suppose that courage means courage 
in everything. Put a hero on board a ship at a five-barred gate, 
— and if he is not used to hunting, he will turn pale. Put a 
fox-hunter on one of the Swiss chasms, over which the moun- 
taineer springs like a roe, and his knees will knock under him. 
People are brave in the dangers to which they accustom them- 
selves, either in imagination or practice. — Book III. Chap. 8. 

CRIMES IN VOGUE. 

It may be observed that there are certain years in which in a 
civilized country some particular crime comes into vogue. It 
flares its season, and then burns out. Thus at one time we 
have Burking — at another, Swingism — now, suicide is in vogue 
— now, poisoning trades-people in apple dumplings — now, little 
boys stab each other with pen-knives — now, common soldiers 
shoot at their sergeants. Almost every 3'ear there is one crime 
peculiar to it ; a sort of annual which overruns the country, but 
does not bloom again. Unquestionably the Press has a great 
deal to do with these epidemics. Let a newspaper once give an 
account of some out-of-the-way atrocity that has the charm of 



120 WIT AND WISDOM OF BUL WER. 

being novel, and certain depraved minds fasten to it like leeches. 
They brood over and revolve it — the idea grows up, a horrid 
phantasmalian monomania , and all of a sudden, in a hundred 
different places, the one seed sown by the leaden types springs 
up into foul flowering. — Book III. Chap. 8. 

TIME, FAITH, ENERGY. 

Time, Faith, and Energy — the three Friends God has given 
to the poor ! — Book III. Chap. 8. 

PRAISE OF THE DEAD. 

Do ye not laugh, O ye all-listening Fiends ! when men praise 
those dead whose virtues they discovered not when alive t It 
takes much marble to build the sepulchre — how little of lath 
and plaster would have repaired the garret ! — Book III. Chap. 
14. 

THE SOUND OF THE BELL. 

As he spoke, the sound of a bell broke over the translucent 
air and the slumbering lake : it was the bell that very eve and 
morn summoned that innocent and pious family to prayer. The 
old man's face changed as he heard it — changed from its cus- 
tomary, indolent, absent, listless aspect, into an expression of 
dignity, even of animation. 

" Hark-! " he said, pointing upwards ; " Hark ! it chides you. 
Who shall say, * where shall 1 look for comfort,' while God is in 
the Heavens .'' " — Book IV. Chap. 2. 

REVELATIONS OF THE MICROSCOPE. 

If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope 
at the monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered 
to yourself how things so terrible have been hitherto unknown 
to you — you have felt a loathing at the limpid element you hith- 
erto deemed so pure — you have half fancied that you would 
cease to be a water-drinker; yet, the next day you have forgotten 
the grim life that started before you, with its countless shapes, 
in that teeming globule ; and, if so tempted by your thirst, you 
have not shrunk from the lying crystal, although myriads of the 
horrible Unseen are mangling, devouring, gorging each other, in 
the liquid you so tranquilly imbibe ; so is it with that ancestral 
and master element called Life. Lapped in your sleek comforts, 
and lolling on the sofa of your patent conscience — when, perhaps 
for the first time, you look through the glass of science upon one 
ghastly globule in the waters that heave around, that fill up, 
with their succulence, the pores of earth, that moisten every 



NIGHT AND MORNING. 121 

atom subject to your eyes, or handled by your touch — you are 
startled and dismayed ; you say, mentally, " Can such things be ? 
I never dreamed of this before ! I thought what was invisible 
to me was non-existent in itself — I will remember this dread ex- 
periment." The next day the experiment is forgotten. — The 
Chemist may purify the Globule — can Science make pure the 
yNoxX^'i—Book IV. Chap. 1. 

QUIET NOT REPOSE. 

Quiet is not repose — obscurity is not content. — Boo^ IF. 
Chap. 5. 

DEMOCRATIC ENTHUSIASM. 

Men, alas ! too often lose the Democratic Enthusiasm in pro- 
portion as they find reason to suspect or despise their kind. 
And if there were not hopes for the Future, which this hard, 
practical daily life does not suffice to teach us, the vision and 
the glory, that belong to the Great Popular Creed, dimmed be- 
neath the injustice, the follies, and the vices of the world as it 
is, would fade into the lukewarm sectarianism of temporary 
V<yx\.y.—Book IV. Chap. 5. 

NO SUCH THING AS ACCIDENT. 

He acknowledged in life no such thing as accident. What- 
ever his struggles, whatever his melancholy, whatever his sense 
of worldly wrong, he never despaired ; for nothing now could 
shake his belief in one directing Providence. — Book IV* Chap. 5- 

LITTLE MINDS. 

Little minds give importance to the man who gives importance 
to nothing. — Book IV. Chap. 7. 

ONE WIZARD, THE GRAVE-DIGGER. 

Will the absent forget, or the lingerer be consoled ? Had 
the characters of that young romance been lightly stamped on 
the fancy where once obliterated they are erased forever, — or 
were they graven deep in those tablets where the writing, even 
when invisible, exists still and revives, sweet letter by letter, 
when the light and the warmth borrowed from the One Bright 
Presence are applied to the faithful record ? There is but one 
Wizard to disclose that secret, as all others, — the old Grave- 
digger, whose Church-yard is the Earth, — whose trade is to find 
burial-places for Passions that seemed immortal, — disinterring 
the ashes of some long crumbling Memory, — to hollow out the 
dark bed of some new-perished Hope ; — He who determines all 



122 IVir AXD WISDOM OF BULWEK. 

things, and prophesies none — for his oracles are uncompre- 
hended till the doom is sealed : — He who in the bloom of the 
fairest affection detects the hectic that consumes it, and while 
the hymn rings at the altar, marks with his joyless eye the grave 
for the burial vow. — Wherever is the sepulchre, there is thy tem- 
ple, O melancholy Time ! — Book IV. Chap. 8. 

HONESTY NO BUSINESS TO BE HELPLESS. 

Captain Smith went a little too far when he said that " honesty's 
nothing without force of character." Still Honesty has no busi- 
ness to be helpless and draggle-tailed : — she must be active and 
brisk, and make use of her wits ; or, though she keep clear of 
the prison, 'tis no very great wonder if she fall on the parish. 
^Book V. Chap. 2. 

WEDDING BELLS. 

" I have heard of a wedding very often," said Fanny, with a 
pretty look of puzzlement and doubt, " but I don't know exactly 
what it means. Will you tell me ? — and the bells, too ! " 

" Yes, Fannv, those bells toll three times for man ! The first 
time when he comes into the world ; the last time when he leaves 
it ; the time between when he takes to his side a partner in al) 
the sorrows — in all the joys that yet remain to him ; and who, 
even when the last bell announces his death to this earth, may 
yet, forever and ever, be his partner in that world to come — 
that heaven, where they who are as innocent as you, Fanny, 
may hope to live and to love each other in a land in which there 
are no graves ! " 

" And this bell ? " 

" Tolls for that partnership — for the wedding ! " 

" I think I understand you ; and — they who are to be wed are 
happy ? " 

" Happy, Fanny, if they love, and their love continue. Oh ! 
conceive tlie happiness to know some one person dearer to you 
than your own self — some one breast into which you can pour i 
every thought, every grief, every joy ! One person, who, if all ; 
the rest of "the world were to calumniate or forsake you, would 
never wrong you by a harsh thought or an unjust word, — who 
would cling to you the closer in sickness, in poverty, in care, — 
who would sacrifice all things to you, and for whom you would 
sacrifice all — from whom, except by death, night or day, you 
may be never divided — whose smile is ever at your hearth — 
who has no tears while you are well and happy, and your love 
the same. Fanny, such is marriage, if they who marry have 
hearts and souls to feel that there is no bond on earth so tender 



NIGHT AND MORNING. 123 

and so sublime. There is an opposite picture ; — I will not draw 
that! — And as it is, Fanny, you cannot understand me!" — 
Book V. Chap. 6. 

RAPIDITY WITH WHICH LOVE RIPENS. 

The rapidity with which love is ripened depends less upon 
the actual number of years that have passed over the soil in 
which the seed is cast, than upon the freshness of the soil itself. 
A young man who lives the ordinary life of the world, and who 
fritters away, rather than exhausts, his feelings, upon a variety of 
quick succeeding subjects — the Cynthias of the minute — is not 
apt to form a real passion at the first sight. Youth is inflamma- 
ble only when the heart is young ! — Book V. Chap. 7. 

THE POWER OF ACTIVITY. 

All history teaches us — public and private history — conquer- 
ors — statesmen — sharp hypocrites, and Brave designers — yes, 
they all teach us how mighty one man of great intellect and no 
scruple is against the justice of millions ! The One Man inoves 
— the Mass is inert. Justice sits on a throne. Roguery never 
rests — Activity is the lever of Archimedes — Book V. Chap. 15. 

OFTEN UNCOMPREHENDED. 

It often happens to us in this world, that when we come with 
our hearts in our hands to some person or other, — when we 
pour out some generous burst of feeling so enthusiastic and 
self-sacrificing, that a bystander would callus fool and Quixote; 
it often, I say, happens to us, to find our warm self suddenly 
thrown back upon our cold self : to discov^er that we are utterly 
uncomprehended, and that the swine who would have munched 
up the acorn does not know what to make of the pearl. That 
sudden ice which then freezes over us, that supreme disgust 
and despair almost of the whole world, which for the moment 
we confound with the one worldling — they who have felt, may 
reasonably ascribe to Philip. — Book V. Chap. 17. 

SERVICE RENDERED TO THE DEAD. 

Alas ! The Dead ! what service can we render to them ? — 
W'hat availed it now, either to the dust below, or to the immor- 
tality above, that the fools and knaves of this world should men- 
tion the Catherine whose life was gone, whose ears were deaf, 
with more or less respect ? There is in calumny that poison 
that, even when the character throws off the slander, the heart 
remains diseased beneath the effect. They say that truth comes 
sooner or later ; but it seldom comes before the soul, passing 



124 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

from agony to contempt, has grown callous to men's judgments. 
Calumniate a human being in youth — adulate that being in age ; 
what has been the interval ? Will the adulation atone either 
for the torture, or the hardness which the torture leaves at last ? 
And if, as in Catherine's case, (a case, how common !) the truth 
come too late — if the tomb is closed — if the heart you have 
wrung can be wrung no more — why the truth is as valueless as 
the epitaph on a forgotten Name ! Some such conviction of 
the hollowness of his own words, when he spoke of service to 
the dead, smote upon Philip's heart, and stopped the flow of 
his words. — Book V. Chap. 19. 

FEW UNITED TO THEIR FIRST LOVE. 

Few of either sex are ever united to their first love ; yet mar- 
ried people jog on, and call each other "my dear" and "my 
darling " all the same ! — Book V. Chap. 18. 

EFFECTS OF SEVERE ILLNESS. 

There is something in severe illness, especially if it be in vio- 
lent contrast to the usual strength of the body, which has often 
the most salutary effect upon the mind ; which often, by the af- 
fliction of the frame, roughly wins us from the too morbid pains 
of the heart ; which makes us feel that, in mere Life, enjoyed 
as the robust enjoy it, God's Great Principle of Good breathes 
and moves. We rise thus from the sick bed softened and hum- 
bled, and more disposed to look around us for such blessings as 
we may yet command. — Book V. Chap. 21. 

FAITH AND LOVE. 

He drew her to his breast as he spoke — drew her trembling, 
blushing, confused, but no more reluctant ; and there, by the 
Grave that had been so memorable a scene in their common 
history, were murmured those vows in which all this world knows 
of human happiness is treasured and recorded — love that takes 
the sting from grief, and faith that gives eternity to love. All 
silent, yet all serene around them ! Above, the heaven, — at 
their feet, the grave : — For the love, the grave ! — for the faith, 
the heaven ! — Book V. Chap. 22. 

THE LOT OF WHAT IS NOBLE. 

The lot of whatever is most noble on the earth below falls 
not amidst the rosy Gardens of the Epicurean. We may envy 
the man who enjoys and rests ; but the smile of Heaven settles 
rather on the front of him who labors and aspires — Final Chap- 
ter, 



NIGHT AND MORNING. ,3^ 

NO TEACHER LIKE LOVE. 

teaclfe"1's'',fke rjvl .- "'''' " "'^"'^^ ^°^ ^''"^ ^ -"'l'-' ""^^t 

Thus saying, he took the boy into his arms; and, as he bent 

over those rosy cheeks, Fanny saw, from the' mov^mentof his 

ips and the moisture in his eyes, that he blessed God He 

ooked up on tire Mother's face, he glanced round on the flowers 

AnH w'lh^'."''^" '"u^"""' '"■"""=■■' =""1 ^^^'^ he blessed God 
And without and withm, it was Light and Morning ^-TheEnd 



'^ 



GODOLPHIN. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

John Vernon, a ci-devant politician and member of Parliament, who dies in 

poverty at the commencement of the story. 
Constance Vernon, daughter of John Vernon, beautiful and gifted, cold 

and ambitious. 
Mr. Godolphin, a miser. 

Percy Godolphin, an idealist, son of the miser and hero of the story. 
Augustus Saville, a fashionable gambler and man of the world: wise and 

heartless. 
Fanny Millinger, a pretty actress. 
Lady Erpingham, a distant relative of the Vernons. 
Robert, Earl of Erpingham, son of Lady Erpingham. In the House of 

Lords. 
Henry Johnstone, a rich and eccentric cousin of Godolphin. 
VoLKTMAN, a Danish visionary. An astrologer. 
LuciLLA VoLKTMAN, the beautiful daughter of the astrologer, in love with 

Percy Godolphin 
Stainforth Radclife, a young politician. 



FROM THE PREFACE. 

This novel was begun somewhere in the third year of my au- 
thorship, and completed in the fourth. It was, therefore, com- 
posed almost simultaneously with " Eugene Aram," and afforded 
to me at least some relief from the gloom of that village 
tragedy. It is needless to observe how dissimilar in point of 
scene, character, and fable, the one is from the other ; yet 
they are alike in this — that both attempt to deal with one of 
the most striking problems on the spiritual history of man, viz., 
the frustration or abuse of power in a superior intellect origi- 
nally inclined to good. Perhaps there is no problem that more 
fascinates the attention of a man of some earnestness at that 
period of his life, when his eye first disengages itself from the 
external phenomena around him, and his curiosity leads him to 
examine the cause and account for the effect ; — when, to cite 
reverently the words of the .Avisest, " He applies his heart to 
know and to search, and to^seek out wisdom and the reason of 
things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness 
and madness." 



GODOLPHIN. 127 

In " Eugene Aram," the natural career of genius is arrested 
by a single crime ; in " Godolphin," a mind of inferior order, but 
more fanciful coloring, is wasted away by the indulgence of 
those morbid sentiments which are the nourishment of Egotism, 
and the gradual influence of the frivolities which make the busi- 
ness of the idle. Here, the Demon tempts or destroys the her- 
mit in his solitary cell. There, he glides amid the pomps and 
vanities of the world, and whispers away the soul in the voice of 
his soft familiars. Indolence and Pleasure. 

Regarded as a story, the defects of "Godolphin " most appar- 
ent to myself are in the manner in which Lucilla is reintroduced 
in the later chapters, and in the final catastrophe of the hero. 
There is an exaggerated romance in the one, and the admission 
of accident as a crowning agency m the other, which my ma- 
turer judgment would certainly condemn, and which at all 
events appear to me out of keeping with the natural events, 
and the more patient investigation of moral causes and their 
consequences, from which the previous interest of the tale is 
sought to be attained. On the other hand, if I may presume 
to conjecture the most probable claim to favor which the work, 
regarded as a whole, may possess — it may possibly be found in 
a tolerably accurate description of certain phases of modern 
civilization, and in the suggestion of some truths that may be 
worth considering in our examination of social influences or in- 
dividual conduct. 

YOUNG ladies' ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 

It seems sometimes odd enough to me, that while young 
ladies are so sedulously taught the accomplishments that a hus- 
band disregards, they are never taught the great one he would 
prize. They are taught to be exhibitors ; he wants a cotnpanioii. 
— Chap. 2. 

GAMING, VICE OF THE ARISTOCRACY. 

Gaming in all countries, is the vice of an aristocracy. The 
young find it already established in the best circles ; they are 
enticed by the habits of others, and ruined when the habit be- 
comes their own. — Chap. 6. 

THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION. 

There is that in theatrical representation which perpetually 
awakens whatever romance belongs to our character. The 
magic lights ; the pomp of scene • th? palace ; the camp ; the 
forest; the midnight wold; the moonlight reflected on the 
water ; the melody of the tragic rhythm ; the grace of the 



128 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER, 

comic wit ; the strange art that gives such meaning to the 
poet's lightest word ; — the fair, false, exciting life that is de- 
tailed before us — crowding into some three little hours all that 
our most busy ambition could desire — love, enterprise, war, 
glory ! the kindling exaggeration of the sentiments which belong 
to the stage — like our own in our boldest moments : all these 
appeals to our finer senses are not made in vain. Our taste for 
castle-building and visions deepens upon us ; and we chew a 
mental opium which stagnates the other faculties, but wakene 
that of the ideal. — C/uiJ>^d>. 

DIFFERENCE IN ATTACHMENTS. 

There are some attachments, of which we so easilv sound the 
depth, that the one never thinks of exacting from the other the 
sacrifices that seem inevitable to more earnest affections, — 
Chap. 9. 

WORKINGS OF OUR NATURE. 

So dark and wondrous are the workings of our nature, that 
there are scarcely any of us, however light and unthinking, who 
would not be arrested by the countenance of one in deep re- 
flection — who would not pause, and long to pierce into the mys- 
teries that were agitating that world, most illimitable by nature, 
but often most narrowed by custom — the world within. — Chap, 
12. 

TRUTH A HARD PATH. 

Oh Truth ! what a hard path is thine ! Does any keep it for 
three inches together in the commonest trifle ? — and yet two 
sides of my library are filled with histories ! — Chap. 12. 

LIFE A DELUSION. 

All life is delusion : all pride, all vanity, all pomp, are equally 
deceit. Like the Spanish hidalgo, we put on spectacles when 
we eat our cherries, in order that they may seem ten times as 
big as they are ! — Chap. 13. 

PROFESSED ATTACHMENT FOR THE COUNTRY. 

" I confess to you," said Godolphin, *' that I have little faith 
in the permanence of any attachment professed for the country 
by the inhabitants of cities. If we can occupy our minds solely 
with the objects around us, — if the brook, and the old tree, and 
the golden sunset, and the summer night, and the animal and 
homely life that w^e survey, — if these can fill our contemplation, 
and take away from us the feverish schemes of the future, — /htrn 



GODOLFHIN. 129 

indeed I can fully understand the reality of that tranquil and 
happy state which our elder poets have described as incident to 
a country life. But if we carry with us to the shade all the rest- 
less and perturbed desires of the city ; if we only employ pres- 
ent leisure in schemes for an agitated future, — then it is in vain 
that we affect the hermit and fly to the retreat. The moment 
the novelty of green fields is over, and our projects are formed, 
we wish to hurry to the city to execute them. We have, in a 
word, made our retirement only a nursery for schemes now 
springing up and requiring to be transplanted." — Chap. 14. 

THE world's last LESSON. 

The world teaches us its last lessons betimes ; but then, lest 
we should have nothing left to acquire from its wisdom, it em- 
ploys the rest of our life in unlearning all that it first taught. — 
Chap, 16. 

MLSTAKING THE MEANS FOR THE END. 

Alas ! for our best and wisest theories, our problems, our sys- 
tems, our philosophy ! Human beings will never cease to mis- 
take the means for the end ; and, despite the dogmas of sages, 
our conduct does not depend on our conviction. — Chap. 17. 

BEAUTY IN WONf AN. 

Beauty is so truly the weapon of woman, that it as impossible 
for her, even in grief, wholly to forget its effect, as it is for the 
dying warrior to look with indifference on the sword with which 
he has won his trophies or his fame. — Chap. 17. 

INVENTING IDLE REPORTS. 

" I thought, till now," said Constance, with grave composure, 
*' that no person could be more contemptible than one \^\\o collects 
idle reports ; I now find I was wrong : a person infinitely more 
contemptible is one who invents them," — Chap. 17. 

WEARINESS OF GREAT ASSEMBLIES. 

What a strange thing, after all, is a great assernbly ! An 
immense mob of persons, who feel for each other the profound- 
est indifference — met together to join in amusements, which the 
large majority of them consider wearisome beyond conception. 
How unintellectual, how uncivilized, such a scene, and such act- 
ors ! What a remnant of barbarous times, when people danced 
because they had nothing to say ! Were there nothing ridicu- 
lous in dancing, there would be nothing ridiculous in seeing 
wise men dance. • But that sight would be ludicrous, because of 
9 



I30 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

the disparity between the mind and the occupation. However, 
we have some excuse ; we go to these assemblies to sell our 
daughters, or flirt with our neighbors' wives. A ball-room is 
nothing more or less than a great market-place of beauty. For 
my part, were I a buyer, I should like making my purchases in 
a less public mart. — Chap, 17. 

DISSIMULATION BETRAYED. 

Of all qualities, dissimulation is that which betrays itself the 
most often in the physiognomy. — A fortunate thing, that the 
long habit of betraying should find at times the index in which 
to betray itself. — Chap. 19. 

LOVE NOT so NECESSARY TO WOMEN. 

** After all," continued Fanny, laughing, " love is not so ne- 
cessary to us women as people think. Fine writers say, ' Oh, 
men have a thousand objects, women but one ! ' That's non- 
sense, dear Percy; women have their thousand objects too. 
They have not the bar, but they have the milliner's shop ; they 
can't fight, but they can sit by the window and embroider a 
work-bag ; they don't rush into politics, but they plunge their 
souls into love for a parrot or a lap-dog. Don't let men flatter 
themselves ; Providence has been just as kind in that respect 
to one sex as to the other." — Chap. 20. 

TRUE MOTIVE FOR HUMAN ACTION. 

Happy had it been for Godolphin, and not unfortunate per- 
haps for the world, had he learned at that exact moment the 
true motive for human action which he afterward, and too late, 
discovered. Happy had it been for him to have learned that 
there is an ambition to do good — an ambition to raise the 
wretched as well as to rise. 

Alas ! — either in letters or in politics, how utterly poor, bar- 
ren, and untempting is every path that points upward to the 
mockery of public eminence, when looked upon by a soul that 
has any real elements of wise or noble ; unless we have an im- 
pulse within, which mortification chills not — a reward without, 
which selfish defeat does not destroy. — Chap. 20. 

POWER OF ATTRACTION. 

" I do believe that we may, by means of this power of attrac- 
tion — this elementary and all-penetrative sympathy, pass away, 
in our last moments, at once into the bosom of those we love. 
For, by the intent and rapt longing to behold the Blessed and to 
be among them, we may be drawn insensibly into their pres- 



GODOLPHIN. 



131 



ence, and the hour being come, when the affinity between the 
Spirit and the Body shall be dissolved, the Mind and Desire, 
being so drawn upward, can return to earth no more. And this 
■ sympathy, refined and extended, will make, I imagine, our 
powers, our very being, in a future state. Our sympathy being 
only, then, with what is immortal, we shall partake necessarily 
of that nature which attracts us ; and the body no longer clog- 
ging the intenseness of our desires, we shall be able by a wish 
to transport ourselves wheresoever we please, — from star to 
star, from glory to glory, charioted and winged by our wishes." 
— Chap. 30. 

MUSICAL STUPIDITIES. 

Very stupid people often become very musical : it is a sort of 
pretension to intellect that suits their capacities. Plutarch says 
somewhere, that the best musical instruments are made from 
the jaw-bones of asses. Plutarch never made a more sensible 
observation. — Chap. ■^,'^. 

WOMEN THE PRISONERS AND DESPOTS OF SOCIETY. 

" You women are at once debarred from public life, and yet 
influence it. You are the prisoners, and yet the despots of "so- 
ciety. Have you talents ? it is criminal to indulge them in pub- 
lic : and thus, as talent cannot be stifled, it is misdirected in 
private : you seek ascendency over your own limited circle ; 
and what should have been genius degenerates into cunning. 
Brought up from your cradles to dissembling, your most beauti- 
ful emotions, your finest principles, are always tinctured with 
artifice. As your talents, being stripped of their wings, are 
driven to creep along the earth, and imbibe its mire and clay ; 
so are your affections perpetually checked and tortured into 
conventional paths, and a spontaneous feeling is punished as a 
deliberate crime. You are untaught the broad and sound prin- 
ciples of life : all that you know of morals are its decencies and 
forms. Thus you are incapable of estimating the public virtues 
and the public deficiencies of a brother or a son ; and one rea- 
son why we have no Brutus, is because you have no Portia. 
Turkey has its seraglio for the person ; but Custom, in Europe, 
has also a seraglio for the mind." — Chap. t^T)- 

BELIEF THE SECRET OF EXERTION. 

In Belief, lies the secret of all our valuable Exertion. Two 
sentiments are enough to preserve even the idlest temper from 
stagnation — a Desire and a Hope. What then can we say of the 
desire to be useful, and the hope to be immortal .'' — Chap. 33. 



132 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULVVER. 

THE QUIET OF NATURE. 

There is something in the quiet of Nature like worship ; it is 
as if, from the breathless heart of Things, went up a prayer or 
a homage to the Arch-Creator. One feels subdued by a still- 
ness so utter and so august; it extends itself to our own sensa- 
tions, and deepens into an awe. — Chap. 34. 

THE PAINTING OF LOVE. 

No one ever painted love so as fully to satisfy another : — to 
some it is too florid — to some too commonplace ; the god, like 
other gods, has no likeness on earth, and every wave on which 
the star of passion beams breaks the lustre into different refrac- 
tions of light. — Chap. 34. 

TRIFLES EXPRESSIVE OF LOVE. 

Wouldst thou know, if the woman thou lovest still loves thee, 
trust not her spoken words, her present smiles ; examine her 
letters in absence, see if she dwells, as she once did, upon trifles 
— but trifles relating to thee. The things which the indifferent 
forget are among the most treasured meditations of love. — Chap. 

34. 

REMEMBERED WHEN SPEAKING. 

" You ! Oh ! one never thinks of you, except when you 
speak, and then one recollects you — to look at the clock." — 
Chap. 49. 

PUBLIC OPINION OF OUR CIRCLE. 

Whatever the circle we live among, the public opinion of that 
circle will, sooner or later, obtain a control over us. This is the 
reason why a life of pleasure makes even the strongest mind 
frivolous at last. The lawyer, the senator, the man of letters, 
all are insensibly guided — moulded — formed — by the judgment 
of the tribe they belong to, and the circle in which they move. 
Still more is it the case with the idlers of the great world, 
among whom the only main staple of talk is "themselves." — 
Chap. 51. 

STRIVING FOR LAUDABLE OBJECTS. 

When a man is striving for what he fancies a laudable object, 
the goodness of his intentions comforts him for a failure in suc- 
cess, whereas your selfishly ambitious man has no consolation 
in his defeats ; he is humbled by the external world, and has 
no inner world to apply to for consolation." — Chap. 52. 



GODOLPHIN. 133 

LOVE COURTS THE PLEASURES. 

Believe me, Love was never made 

In deserts to abide ; 
Leave Age to take the sober shade, 

And Youth the sunny side. 

Love dozes by the purling brook, 

No friend to lonely places ; 
Or, if he toy with Strephon's crook, 

His Chloes are the Graces. 

Forsake " The Flaunting Town ! " Alas 1 

Be cells for saints, my own love ! 
The wine of life's a social glass. 

Nor may be quaffed alone, love. 

Behold the dead and solemn sea, 

To which our beings flow ; 
Let waves that soon so dark must be 

Catch every glory now. 

I would not chain that heart to this, 

To sicken at the rest ; 
The cage we close a prison is, 

The open cage a nest. 

Chap. 53. 

INDIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE. 

When once, in a very gay and occupied life, a husband and 
wife have admitted a seeming indifference to creep in between 
them, the chances are a thousand to one against its after-re- 
moval. — Chap 54. 

ENTHUSIASM OR COLDNESS NECESSARY. 

"Alas!" answered Radclyffe, "it is of no use advising one 
to be happy who has no object beyond himself. Either enthu- 
siasm, or utter mechanical coldness, is necessary to reconcile 
men to the cares and mortifications of life. You must feel 
nothing, or you must feel for others. Unite yourself to a great 
object ; see its goal distinctly ; cling to its course courageously ; 
hope for its triumph sanguinely ; and on its majestic progress 
you sail, as in a ship, agitated indeed by the storms, but un- 
heeding the breeze and the surge that would appall the individ- 
ual effort. The larger public objects make us glide smoothly 
and unfelt over our minor private griefs. To be happy, my 
dear Godolphin, you must forget yourself. Your refining and 
poetical temperament preys upon your content. Learn benevo- 
lence — it is the only cure to a morbid nature." — Chap. 64. 



1 34 WIT A ND WISDOM OF B UL WER. 

GREAT FALLACY IN MORALS. 

What is penitence not put into action, but the great fallacy 
in morals ? A sin to one, if irremediable, can only be compen- 
sated by a virtue to some one else. — Chap. 68. 

DISPARITIES IN LIFE. 

I cheer myself by the firm assurance that, sooner or later, 
a time must come, when those vast disparities in life which 
have been fatal, not to myself alone, but to all I have admired 
and loved ; which render the great heartless, and the lowly ser- 
vile ; which make genius either an enemy to mankind or the 
victim to itself; which debase the energetic purpose; which 
fritter away the ennobling sentiment ; which cool the heart and 
fetter the capacities, and are favorable only to the general de- 
velopment of the Mediocre and the Lukewarm, shall, if never 
utterly removed, at least be smoothed away into more genial 
and unobstructed elements of society. Alas ! it is with an ach- 
ing eye that we look abroad for the only solace, the only occu- 
pation of life, — Solitude at home, and Memory at our hearth. — 
The End, 



THE CAXTONS. 
A FAMILY PICTURE. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Augustine Caxton, a noble scholar. 

Mrs. Caxton, wife of the scholar. 

PisiSTRATUS Caxton, son of the scholar. 

Ronald de Caxton, brother of Augustine. 

Francis Vivian, alias Mr. Gower, rt'//V?j Herbert Caxton, son of Ronald. 

Blanche Caxton, daughter of Ronald. 

Mr. Squills, the family physician. 

Mr. Trevanion, member of Parliament, afterwards Earl of Ulverstone. 

Lady Ellinor Trevanion, wife of the Earl of Ulverstone. 

Fanny Trevanion, daughter of the Earl, and wife of Lord Castleton. 

Mr. Sedley Beaudesert, gentleman. Afterwards Lord Castleton. 

Uncle Jack Tibbets, brother of Mrs. Caxton ; a great speculator. 



PREFACE. 

If it be the good fortune of this work to possess any interest 
for the Novel-reader, that interest, perhaps, will be but little de- 
rived from the customary element* of fiction. The plot is ex- 
tremely slight ; the incidents are few, and, with the exception 
of those which involve the fate of Vivian, such as may be 
found in records of ordinary life. 

Regarded as a novel, this attempt is an experiment some- 
what apart from the previous works of the author ; it is the 
first of his writings in which Humor has been employed less 
for the purpose of satire than in illustration of amiable char- 
acters ; — it is the first, too, in which man has been viewed less 
in his active relations with the world than in his repose at his 
own hearlh : — in a word, the greater part of the canvass has 
been devoted to the completion of a simple Family Picture. 
And thus, in any appeal to the sympathies of the human heart, 
the common household affections occupy the place of those live- 
lier or larger passions which usually (and not unjustly) arrogate 
the foreground in Romantic composition. 

In the Hero whose autobiography connects the different chai- 
acters and events of the work, it has been the Author's inten- 



136 WIT AND WISDOM OF BUL WER. 

tion to imply the influences of Home upon the conduct and 
career of youth ; and in the ambition which estranges Pisistra- 
Tus for a time from the sedentary occupations in which the man 
of civilized life must usually serve his apprenticeship to Fortune 
or to Fame, it is not designed to describe the fever of Genius 
conscious of superior powers and aspiring to high destinies, but 
the natural tendencies of a fresh and buoyant mind, rather vig- 
orous than contemplative, and in which the desire of action is 
but the symptom of health. 

PisiSTRATUS, in this respect (as he himself feels and implies), 
becomes the specimen or type of a class the numbers of which 
are daily increasing in the inevitable progress of modern civiliza- 
tion. He is one too many in the midst of the crowd : he is 
the representative of the exuberant energies of youth, turning, 
as with the instinct of Nature for space and development, from 
the Old World to the New. That which may be called the 
interior meaning of the whole is sought to be completed by the 
inference that, whatever our wanderings, our happiness will 
always be found within a narrow compass, and amidst the ob- 
jects more immediately within our reach ; but that we are sel- 
dom sensible of this truth (hackneyed though it be in the Schools 
of all Philosophies) till our researches have spread over a wider 
area. To insure the blessing of repose, we require a brisker 
excitement than a few turns up and down our room. Content 
is like that humor in the crystal, on which Claudian has lavished 
the wonder of a child and the fancies of a Poet — 

" Vivis gemn»a tumescit aquis." 

E. B. L. 

CHILD EDUCATED FROM BIRTH. 

I agree with Helvetius, the child should be educated from its 
birth ; but how } — there is the rub : send him to school forth- 
with ! Certainly, he is at school already with the two great 
teachers, Nature and Love. Observe, that childhood and gen- 
ius have the same master-organ in common — inquisitiveness. 
Let childhood have its way, and as it began where genius begins, 
it may find what genius finds. A certain Greek writer tells us of 
some man, who, in order to save his bees a troublesome flight to 
Hymettus, cut their wings and placed before them the finest 
flowers he could select. The poor bees made no honey. Now, 
sir, if I were to teach my boy, I should be cutting his wings, 
and giving him the flowers he should find himself. Let us leave 
Nature alone for the present, and Nature's loving proxy, the 
watchful mother." — Part I. Chap 4. 



THE CAXTONS. 137 

BOOKS TO BE MASTERED. 

Master books, but do not let them master you. Read to live, 
not live to read. — Fart II. Chap. i. 

DESCRIPTION OF UNCLE JACK. 

Uncle Jack was as plump as a partridge — not unwieldy, not 
corpulent, not obese, not " vastus,''^ which Cicero objects to in 
an orator — but every crevice comfortably filled up. Like the 
ocean, " time wrote no wrinkles on his glassy (or brassy) brow." 
His natural lines were all upward curves, his smile most ingra- 
tiating, his eye so frank, even his trick of rubbing his clean, well- 
fed, English-looking hands, had something about it coaxing, 
2ind dSonnaire^ something that actually decoyed you into trusting 
your money into hands so prepossessing. Indeed, to him might 
be fully applied the expression — " Sedem animae in extremis 
digitis habet ; " " He had his soul's seat in his finger-ends." 
The critics observe that few men have ever united in equal per- 
fection the imaginative with the scientific faculty. " Happy he," 
exclaims Schiller, "who combines the enthusiast's warmth with 
the worldly man's 'light " — light and warmth, Uncle Jack had 
them both. He was a perfect symphony of bewitching enthu- 
siasm and convincing calculation. Nicaeopolis in the Acharnen- 
ses, in presenting a gentleman called Nicharchus to the au- 
dience, observes — " He is small, I confess, but there is nothing 
lost in him ; all is knave that is not fool." Parodying the equiv- 
ocal compliment, I may say that though Uncle Jack was no 
giant, there was nothing lost in him. Whatever was not phi- 
lanthropy was arithmetic, and whatever was not arithmetic was 
philanthropy. He would have been equally dear to Howard and 
to Cocker. — Fart II. Chap. 2. 

A FULL MIND. 

A full mind is the true Pantheism, //^//rt; Jovis. It is only in 
some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can 
obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your door, my son, be 
able to say, " No room for your ladyship, — pass on." — Fart II 
Chap. 5. 

ENVIED TITLE OF " YOUNG MAN." 

Now, be it observed, that that crisis in adolescent existence 
wherein we first pass from Master Sisty into Mr. Pisistratus, or 
Pisistratus Caxton, Esq. — wherein we arrogate, and with tacit 
concession from our elders, the long-envied title of " young 
man " always seems a sudden and imprompt upshooting and 
elevation. We do not mark the gradual preparations thereto ; 



1 38 UVT A Xn ir/SDOM OF B UL IVER. 

we remember only one distinct period in which all the signs 
and symptoms burst and cfiloresced together : Wellington boots, 
coat tail, cravat, down on the upper lip, thoughts on razors, 
reveries on voung ladies, and a new kind of sense of poetry. — 
Piuf II. Chap. ^. 

INTENSITY PRODUCES A WRITER. 

It is not study alone that produces a writer ; it is intensity. — 
Fart III. Chap. 5. 

THE DEAD NEVER DIE. 

We cannot think or act, but the soul of some man, who has 
lived before, points the way. The dead never die. — Fart IV. 
Chap. I. 

A WRITER OF ROMANCES. 

Ah what a writer of romances he would have been, if — if 
what ? If he had had as sad an experience of men's passions, 
as he had the happy intuition into their humors. But he who 
would see the mirror of the shore, must look where it is cast on 
the river, not the ocean. The narrow stream reflects the gnarled 
tree, and the pausing herd, and the village spire, antl the ro- 
mance of the landscape ; but the sea reilects only the vast out- 
line of the headland, and the lights of the eternal heaven. — 
Fart IV. Chap. 2. 

ONE THING TO WRITE, ANOTHER TO PUBLISH. 

" It is one thing to write and another to publish," said my 
father irresolutely. *' When one considers all the great men who 
have published ; when one thinks one is going to intrude one's- 
self audaciously into the company of Aristotle and Bacon, of 
Locke, of Herder — of all the grave philosophers who bend over 
Nature with brows weightv with thought — one may well pause, 
and " 

''Pooh ! " interrupted Uncle Jack ; ''science is not a club, it 
is an ocean ; it is open to the cockboat as the frigate. One man 
carries across it a freightage of ingots, another may tish there 
for herrings. Who can exhaust the sea ? who say to intellect, 
' The deeps of philosophy are preoccupied ? ' " — I\7rt IJ\ Chap. 

3- 

MAN NOT A MACHINE. 

" Then," said Trevanion, " if I tell you I am not happy, 
your only answer is, that I obey an inevitable law." 

" No! I don't sav that it is an inevitable law that man should 



THE CAXTONS, I39 

not be happy : but it is an inevitable law that a man, in spite 
of himself, should live for something higher than his own happi- 
ness. He cannot live in himself or for himself, however egotis- 
tical he may try to be. Every desire he has links him with 
others. Man is not a machine — he is a part of one." 

" True, brother, he is a soldier, not an army," said Captain 
Roland. 

" Life is a drama, not a monologue," pursued my father. 
"Drama is derived from a Greek verb, signifying to do. Every 
actor in the drama has something to do, which helps on the prog- 
ress of the whole ; that is the object for which the author 
created him. Do your part, and let the Great Play get on." 
—Part VI. Chap. i. 

THE SUN AS A SERVANT. 

" My dear Beaudesert," said my father, " when St. Amable, 
patron saint of Riom, in Auvergne, went to Rome, the sun waited 
upon him as a servant, carried his cloak and gloves for him in 
the heat, and kept off the rain, if the weather changed, like an 
umbrella. You want to put the sun to the same use ; you are 
quite right ; but then, you see, you must first be a saint before 
you can be sure of the sun as a servant." — Part VI. Chap. i. 

BACK FROM THE WORLD TO HOME. 

O young reader, whoever thou art — or reader, at least, who 
hast been young — canst thou not remember some time when, 
with the wild troubles and sorrows as yet borne in secret, thou 
hast come back from that hard, stern world, which opens on 
thee when thou puttest thy foot out of the threshold of home — 
come back to the four quiet walls, wherein thine elders sit in 
peace — and seen, with a sort of sad amaze, how calm and un- 
disturbed all is there 1 That generation which has gone before 
thee in the path of the passions — the generation of thy parents 
(not so many years, perchance, remote from thine own) — how 
immovably far off, in its still repose, it seems from thy turbulent 
youth ! It has in it a stillness as of a classic age, antique as 
the statues of the Greeks. The tranquil monotony of routine in- 
to which those lives that preceded thee have merged — the occu- 
pations that they have found sufficing for their happiness, by the 
fireside — in the arm-chair and corner appropriated to each — 
how strangely they contrast thine own feverish excitement ! 
And they make room for thee, and bid thee welcome and then 
resettle to their hushed pursuits, as if nothing had happened ! 
Nothing had happened ? while in thy heart, perhaps, the whole 
world seems to have shot from its axis, all the elements to be at 



140 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

war ! And you sit down, crushed by that quiet happiness which 
you can share no more, and smile mechanically, and look into 
the fire ; and, ten to one, you say nothing till the time comes 
for bed, and you take up your candle, and creep miserably to 
your lonely room. — Part IX. Chap, i . 

READING FOR PEOPLE IN SORROW. 

I have known some people in great sorrow fly to a novel, or 
the last light book in fashion. One might as well take a rose- 
draught for the plague ! Light reading does not do when the 
heart is really heavy. I am told that Goethe, when he lost his 
son, took to studying a science that was new to him. Ah ! Goethe 
was a physician who knew what he was about. In a great grief 
like that, you cannot tickle and divert the mind ; you must 
wrench it away, abstract, absorb — bury it in an abyss, hurry it 
into a labyrinth. Therefore, for the irremediable sorrows of 
middle life and old age, I recommend a strict chronic course of 
science and hard reasoning — Counter-irritation. Bring the 
brain to act upon the heart 1 If science is too much against 
the grain (for we have not all got mathematical heads), some- 
thing in the reach of the humblest understanding, but sufficiently 
searching to the highest — a new language — Greek, Arabic, 
Scandinavian, Chinese or Welsh ! For the loss of fortune, the 
dose should be applied less directly to the understanding — I 
would administer something elegant and cordial. For, as the 
heart is crushed and lacerated by a loss in the affections, so it 
is rather the head that aches and suffers by the loss of money. 
Here we find the higher class of poets a very valuable remedy. 
For observe that poets of the grander and more comprehensive 
kind of genius have in them two separate men, quite distinct 
from each other — the imaginative man, and the practical, cir- 
cumstantial man ; and it is the happy mixture of these that suits 
diseases of the mind, half imaginative and half practical. — Part 
IX. Chap. 5. 

PLAN FOR A LIBRARY. 

" I have a plan for a library that, instead of heading its com- 
partments, ' Philology, Natural Science, Poetry,' etc., one shall 
head them according to the diseases for which they are sever- 
ally good, bodily and mental — up from a dire calamity, or the 
pangs of the gout, down to a fit of the spleen or a slight catarrh ; 
for which last your light reading comes in with a whey posset 
and barley-water. But," continued my father more gravely, 
" when some one sorrow, that is yet reparable, gets hold of your 
mind like a monomania — when you think, because heaven has 



THE CAXTONS. 141 

denied you this or that, on which you had set your heart, that 
all your life must be a blank — oh ! then diet yourself well on 
biography — the biography of good and great men. See how 
little a space one sorrow really makes in life. See scarce a 
page, perhaps, given to some grief similar to your own; and 
how triumphantly the life sails on beyond it ! You thought the 
wing was broken ! — Tut — tut — it was only a bruised feather ! 
See what life leaves behind it when all is done ! — a summarv of 
positive facts far out of the region of sorrow^ and suffering, link- 
ing themselves with the being of the world." — Part IX. Chap. 5. 

SIMILARITY IN AFFLICTION. 

Similarity in affliction makes us brothers even to the unknown. 
-^Part IX. Chap. 7. 

LEARNING. 

Learning — that marble image — warms into life, not at the 
toil of the chisel, but the worship of the sculptor. The mechan- 
ical workman finds but the voiceless stone. — Pari X. Chap. 6. 

SILENCE. 

Silence — what a world it covers ! — what busy schemes — what 
bright hopes and dark fears — what ambition, or what despair \ 
Do you ever see a man in any society sitting mute for hours and 
not feel an uneasy curiosity to penetrate the wall he thus builds 
up between others and himself? Does he not interest you far 
more than the brilliant talker at your left — the airy wit at your 
right, whose shafts fall in vain on the sullen barrier of the silent 
man ! Silence, dark sister of Nox and Erebus, how, layer upon 
layer, shadow upon shadow, blackness upon blackness, thou 
stretchest thyself from hell to heaven, over thy two chosen 
haunts — man's heart and the grave ! — Part XI. Chap. i. 

WHAT NATURE GIVES. 

Nature gives us all except the means to turn her into market- 
able account. As old Plautus saith so wittily, " Day, night, 
water, sun, and moon, are to be had gratis; for everything else 
— down with your dust ! " — Part XII Chap. i. 

' DREAMS — PROPHETS. 

Dream, O youth ! — dream manfully and nobly, and thy dreams 
shall be prophets ! — Part XII. Chap. 5. 

DEMAND OF THE RESTLESS PRINCIPLE. 

Most students, at one time or other in their existence, have 
felt the imperious demand of that restless principle in man's 



142 WIT AND WISDOM OF BUL WER. 

nature, which calls upon each son of Adam to contribute his 
share to the vast treasury of human deeds. And though great 
scholars are not necessarily, nor usually, men of action, — yet 
the men of action whom History presents to our survey, have 
rarely been without a certain degree of scholarly nurture. For 
the ideas which books quicken, books cannot always satisfy. 
And though the royal pupil of Aristotle slept with Homer under 
his pillow, it was not that he might dream of composing epics, 
but of conquering new Ilions in the East. — Fart XII, Chap. 7. 

BORDERER OF TWO WORLDS. 

Borderer thyself of two worlds — the Dead and the Living — 
give thine ear to the tones, bow thy soul to the shadows, that 
steal, in the Season of Change, from the dim Border Land. — 
Part XIII Chap. 6. 

DEFENCE OF FORTUNE. 

There is a beautiful and singular passage in Dante (which 
has not perhaps attracted the attention it deserves) wherein the 
stern Florentine defends Fortune from the popular accusations 
against her. According *to him, she is an angelic power ap- 
pointed by the Supreme Being to direct and order the course of 
human splendors ; she obeys the will of God ; she is blessed, 
and, hearing not those who blaspheme her, calm and aloft 
amongst the other angelic powers, revolves her spheral course, 
and rejoices in her beatitude. 

This is a conception very different from the popular notion 
which Aristophanes, in his true instinct of things popular, ex- 
presses by the sullen lips of his Plutus. That deity accounts 
for his blindness by saying, that " when a boy, he had indis- 
creetly promised to visit only the good," and Jupiter was so en- 
vious of the good that he blinded the poor money-god. Where- 
upon Chremylus asks him, whether, " if he recovered his sight, 
he would frequent the company of the good ? " " Certainly," 
quoth Plutus, " for I have not seen them ever so long." " Nor 
I either," rejoins Chremylus, pithily, "for all I can see out of 
both eyes." 

But that misanthropical answer of Chremylus is neither here 
nor there, and only diverts us from the real question, and that 
is, "Whether Fortune be a heavenly, Christian angel, or a blind, 
blundering, old heathen deity?" For my part, I hold with 
Dante— for which, if I were so pleased, or if, at this period of 
i;iy memoirs, I had half-a-dozen pages to spare, I could give 
many good reasons. One thing, however, is quite clear— that, 
whether Fortune be more like Plutus or an angel, it is no use 



THE CAXTONS. 143 

abusing her — one may as well throw stones at a star. And I 
think if one looked narrowly at her operations, one might per- 
ceive that she gives every man a chance, at least once in his 
life ; if he take and make the best of it, she will renew her 
visits; if not, itnr ad astra ! — Part XIV. Chap. i. 

' GREAT STRUGGLES -OF LIFE. 

The great struggles in life are limited moments. In the 
drooping of the head upon the bosom — in the pressure of the 
hand upon the brow — we may scarcely consume a second in our 
threescore years and ten ; but what revolutions of our whole 
being may pass within us, while that single sand drops noiseless 
down to the bottom of the hour-glass ! — Part XIV. Chap. 3. 

WEAPON THAT CONQUERS FATE. 

Any weapon that conquers fate is noble in the hands of a 
brave man. — Part XIV. Chap. 4. 

SCEPTICISMS OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIE. 

The Frenchman laughed the boy out of his superstitions, to 
leave behind them the sneering scepticisms of the Eficydop^die^ 
Vv'ithout those redeeming ethics on which all sects of philosophy 
are agreed, but which, unhappily, it requires a philosopher to 
comprehend. 

This preceptor was, doubtless, not aware of the mischief he 
was doing; and for the rest, he taught his pupil after his own 
system — a mild and plausible one, very much like the system 
we at home are recommended to adopt — " Teach the under- 
standing, — all else will follow ; " " Learn to read something, and 
it will all come right; " "Follow the bias of the pupil's mind ; 
thus you develop genius, not thwart it.'* Mind, understanding, 
genius — fine things! But, to educate the whole man, you must 
educate more than these. Not for want of mind, understand- 
ing, genius, have Borgias and Neros left their names as monu- 
ments of horror to mankind. Where, in all this teaching, was 
one lesson to warm the heart and guide the soul ? 

Oh, mother mine ! that the boy had stood by thy knee, and 
heard from thy lips why life was given us, in what life shall 
end, and how heaven stands open to us night and day ! Oh, 
father mine ! that thou hadst been his preceptor, not in book- 
learning, but the heart's simple wisdom ! Oh that he had 
learned from thee, in parables closed with practice, the happi- 
ness of self-sacrifice, and how " good deeds should repair the 
bad ! ''—Part XVI. Chap. 4. 



144 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

PROVIDENCE ATONING FOR FORTUNE. 

It is marvellous with what liberality Providence atones for 
the partial dispensations of Fortune. Independence, or the 
vigorous pursuit of it ; Affection, with its hopes and its rewards ; 
a life only rendered by Art more susceptible to Nature — in 
which the physical enjoyments are pure and healthful — in which 
the moral faculties expand harmoniously with the intellectual — 
and the heart is at peace with the mind ; is this a mean lot for 
ambition to desire — and is it so far out of human reach ? 
" Know thyself," said the old philosophy. " Improve thyself," 
saith the new. The great object of the Sojourner in Time is 
not to waste all his passions and gifts on the things external, 
that he must leave behind — that which he cultivates within is all 
that he can carry into the Eternal Progress. We are here but 
as school-boys, whose life begins where school ends ; and the 
battles we fought with our rivals, and the toys that we shared 
with our playmates, and the names we carved high or low, on 
the wall, above our desks — will they so much bestead us here- 
after? As new fates crowd upon us, can they more than pass 
through the memory with a smile or a sigh ? Look back to thy 
school-days, and answer. — Fart XVI. Chap. lo. 

.SEAS OF HUMAN LIFE. 

The seas of human life are wide. Wisdom may suggest the 
voyage, but it must first look to the condition of the ship, and 
the nature of the merchandise to exchange. Not every vessel 
that sails from Tarshish can bring back the gold of Ophir; but 
shall it therefore rot in the harbor ? No ; give its sails to the 
wind ! How little the nobleness of aspect depends on symme- 
try of feature, or the mere proportions of form ! What dignity 
robes the man who is filled with a lofty thought ! — Fart XVIf. 
Chap. 3. 

HAPPY DREAM OF GRAND- PARENTS. 

Happy dream which Heaven sends to grand-parents ! re-bap- 
tism of Hope in the font whose drops sprinkle the grandchild ! — 
Fart XVII. Chap. 4. 

FAREW^ELL TO AUSTRALIA. 

Adieu, thou beautiful land ! Canaan of the exiles, and 
Ararat to many a shattered Ark ! Fair cradle of a race for 
whom the unbounded heritage of a future, that no sage can con- 
jecture, no prophet divine, lies afar in the golden promise-light 
of Time ! — destined, perchance, from the sins and sorrows of a 
civilization struggling with its own elements of decay, to renew 



THE C AX TONS. 145 

the youth of the world, and transmit the great soul of England 
through the cycles of Infinite Change. All climates that can 
best ripen the products of earth, or form into various character 
and temper the different families of man, " rain influences " 
from the heaven, that smiles so benignly on those who had once 
shrunk, ragged, from the wind, or scowled on the thankless sun. 
Here, the hardy air of the chill Mother Isle, there the mild 
warmth of Italian autumns, or the breathless glow of the trop- 
ics. And with all the beams of every climate, guides subtle 
Hope. Adieu, my kind nurse and sweet foster-mother ! — a long 
and a last adieu ! Never had I left thee but for that louder 
voice of Nature which calls the child to the parent, and woos us 
from the labors we love the best by the chime in the Sabbath- 
bells of YLom^.—Part XVIIL Chap. i. 

FOR HEARTH AND ALTAR. 

Then Roland took down from the wall his son's sword. 
Stealing to the cradle, he laid it in its sheath by the infant's 
side, and glanced from my father to us with a beseeching eye. 
Instinctively Blanche bent over the cradle, as if to protect the 
Neogilos ; but the child, waking, turned from her, and attracted 
by the glitter of the hilt, laid one hand lustily thereon, and 
pointed with the other, laughingly, to Roland. 

" Only on my father's proviso," said I, hesitatingly. " For 
hearth and altar — nothing less ! " 

"And even in that case," said my father, " add the shield to 
the sword ! " and on the other side of the infant he placed 
Roland's well-worn Bible, blistered in many a page with secret 
tears. 

There we all stood, grouping round the young centre of so 
many hopes and fears — in peace or in war, born alike for the 
Battle of Life. And he, unconscious of all that made our lips 
silent, and our eyes dim, had already left that bright bauble of 
the sword, and thrown both arms round Roland's bended neck. 

'•'' Herbert !^^ murmured Roland; and Blanche gently drew 
away the sword — and left the Bible. — The End. 
10 



THE COMING RACE; 

OR, 

THE NEW UTOPIA. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Aph Lin, chief administrator of the Lightning Department. 

Bra, wife of Aph Lin. 

Zee, daughter of Aph Lin, and a member of the " College of Sages." 

TuR, the magistrate. 

Tae, eldest son of the magistrate. 

[This story is of an adventure among the tribe of Vril-ya, a 
subterranean people.] 



PECULIARITIES OF THE RELIGION OF THE VRIL-YA. 

This people have a religion, and, whatever may be said 
against it, at least it has these strange peculiarities : firstly, that 
they all believe in the creed they profess ; secondly, that they 
all practise the precepts which the creed inculcates. They 
unite in the worship of the one divine Creator and Sustainer of 
the universe. — Chap. 13. 

BELIEFS OF THE VRIL-YA. 

Though, as I have said, the Vril-ya discourage all specula- 
tions on the nature of the Supreme Being, they appear to con- 
cur in a belief by which they think to solve that great problem 
of the existence of evil which has so perplexed the philosophy 
of the upper w^orld. They hold that wherever He has once 
given life, with the perceptions of that life, however faint it be, 
as in a plant, the life is never destroyed ; it passes into new and 
improved forms, though not in this planet (differing therein from 
the ordinary doctrine of metempsychosis), and that the living 
thing retains the sense of identit}^,. so that it connects its past 
life with its future, and is conscious of its progressive improve- 
ment in the scale of joy. For they say that, without this as- 
sumption, they cannot, according to the lights of human reason 
vouchsafed to them, discover the perfect justice which must be 
a constituent quality of the All-Wise and the All-Good. Injus- 



THE COMIXG RACE. 147 

tice, they say, can only emanate from three causes : Want of 
wisdom to perceive what is just. \Yant of benevolence to desire, 
want of power to fulfil it ; and that each of these three wants is 
incompatible in the All-Wise, the All-Good, the All-Powerful — 
but that, while even in this life the wisdom, the benevolence, 
and the power of the Supreme Being are sufficiently apparent 
to compel our recognition, the justice necessarily resulting from 
those attributes, absolutely requires another life, not for man 
onlv, but for everv living thins: of the inferior orders : that, alike 
in the animal and the vegetable world, w^e see one individual 
rendered, by circumstances beyond its control, exceedingly 
wretched compared to its neighbors — one only exists as the prey 
of another — even a plant sutlers from disease till it perishes 
prematurely, while the plant next to it rejoices in its vitality and 
lives out its happy life free from a pang ; that it is an erroneous 
analogy from human infirmities to reply by saying that the Su- 
preme Being only acts by general laws, thereby making his own 
secondary causes so potent as to mar the essential kindness of 
the First Cause ; and a still meaner and more ignorant concep- 
tion of the All-Good, to dismiss with a brief contempt all con- 
sideration of justice for the myriad forms into which He has in- 
fused life, and assume that justice is only due to the single prod- 
uct of the An. — Chap. 14. 

EFFECT OF BELIEF ON GOVERNMEXT. 

However fantastic this belief of the Vril-ya may be. it tends 
perhaps to contirm politically the systems of government which, 
admitting ditfering degrees of wealth, yet establishes perfect 
equality in rank, exquisite mildness in all relations and inter- 
course, and tenderness to all created things which the good of 
the community does not require them to destroy. And though 
their notion of compensation to a tortured insect or a cankered 
flower may seem to some of us a very wild crochet, yet, at least, 
it is not a mischievous one ; and it may furnish matter for no 
unpleasing reflection to think that within the abysses of earth, 
never lit by a ray from the material heavens, there should have 
penetrated so luminous a conviction of the ineftable goodness of 
the Creator — so fixed an idea that the general laws by which 
He acts cannot admit of any partial injustice or evil, and there- 
fore cannot be comprehended without reference to their action 
over all space and throughout all time. — Chap. 14. 

EARTHLY LIFE ASSIMILATED TO HEAVENLY EXISTENCE. 

Our notion is, that the more we can assimilate life to the ex- 
istence which our noblest ideas can conceive to be that of spirits 



148 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

on the other side of the grave, why, the more we approximate 
to a divine happiness here, and the more easily we glide into the 
conditions of being hereafter. For, surely, all we can imagine 
of the life of gods, or of blessed immortals, supposes the absence 
of self-made cares and contentious passions, such as avarice and 
ambition. It seems to us that it must be a life of serene tran- 
quillity, not indeed without active occupations to the intellectual 
or spiritual powers, but occupations of whatsoever nature they 
be, congenial to the idiosyncrasies of each, not forced and re- 
pugnant — a life gladdened by the untrammelled interchange of 
gentle affections, in which the moral atmosphere utterly kills 
hate and vengeance, and strife and rivalry. — Chap. 15. 

ARGUMENT USELESS. 

Every sensible man knows that it is useless to argue with any 
ordinary female upon matters he comprehends ; but to argue 
with a Gy seven feet high upon the mysteries of vril — as well 
argue in a desert, and with a simoom ! — Chap, 16. 

HUMILITY AND EXALTATION. 

Among the pithy sayings which, according to tradition, the 
philosopher bequeathed to posterity in rhythmical form and sen- 
tentious brevity, this is notably recorded : " Humble yourselves, 
my descendants ; the father of your race was a twat (tadpole) : 
exalt yourselves, my descendants, for it was the same Divine 
Thought which created your father that develops itself in exalt- 
ing you." — Chap. 16. 

ELEMENTS OF WHICH OUR BODIES ARE COMPOSED. . 

When we know the elements out of which our bodies are com- 
posed, elements common to the humblest vegetable plants, can 
it signify whether the All-Wise combined those elements out of 
one form more than another, in order to create that in which 
He has placed the capacity to receive the idea of Himself, and 
all the varied grandeurs of intellect to which that idea gives 
birth ? The Afi in reality commenced to exist as An with the 
donation of that capacity, and, with that capacity, the sense to 
acknowledge that, however through the countless ages his race 
n^y improve in wisdom, it can never combine the elements at 
its command into the form of a tadpole." — Chap. 16. 

ATTACHMENT OF THE GY. 

As the Gy is sure only to marry where she herself fixes her 
choice, and as here, not less than above ground, it is the female 
on whom the happiness of home depends ; so the Gy, having 



THE COMING RACE. 149 

chosen the mate she prefers to all others, is lenient to his faults, 
consults his humors, and does her best to secure his attachment. 
The death of a beloved one is of course with them, as with us, 
a cause of sorrow ; but not only is death with them so much 
more rare before that age in which it becomes a release but 
when it does occur the survivor takes much more consolation 
than, I am afraid, the generality of us do, in the certainty of re- 
union in another and yet happier life. — Chap. 17. 

ATTRIBUTES AND ESSENCE OF THE ALL-GOOD. 

Formerly there was a vast deal written respecting the attrib- 
utes and essence of the All-Good, and the arguments for and 
against a future state ; but now we all recognize two facts — that 
there is a Divine Being, and there is a future state — and we all 
equally agree that if we wrote our fingers to the bone, we could 
not throw any light upon the nature and conditions of that future 
state, or quicken our apprehensions of the attributes and essence 
of that Divine Being. — Chap. 17. 

THE GIFT OF POETRY. 

Though the gift of poetry may be inborn, the gift requires as 
much care to make it available as a block of metal does to be 
made into one of your engines." — Chap. 17. 

EXERCISE FOR THE MIND. 

Man must have exercise for his mind as well as body ; and 
continuous exercise, rather than violent, is best for both. — 
Chap. 17. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMING RACE. 

The more I think of a people calmly developing, in regions 
excluded from our sight and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, 
powers surpassing our most disciplined modes of force, and vir- 
tues to which our life, social and political, becomes antagonistic 
in proportion as our civilization advances — the more devoutly 
do I pray that ages may yet elapse before there emerge into sun- 
light our inevitable destroyers. Being, however, frankly told 
by my physician that I am afflicted by a complaint which, though 
it gives little pain and no perceptible notice of its encroachments, 
may at any moment be fatal, I have thought it my duty to my 
fellow-men to place on record these forewarnings of The Com- 
ing Race. — The End. 



LEILA; 

OR, 

THE SIEGE OF GRANADA. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

BoABDTL EL Chico, of Granada, the last of the Moorish dynasty in Spain. 

]\Ii'ZA Ben Abil Gazan, a Moorish prince. 

Almamex, son of Issachar the Jew. An enchanter. 

Leila, the heroine, daughter of Ahnamen. 

Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain. 

Prince Juan, the king's son. 

RoDRiGO Ponce de Leon, Marquis of Cadiz. 

Marquis de Villena, the Bayard of Spain. 

Duke of Medina Sidonia. 

Alonzo de Aguilar. 

Hernando del Pulgar. 

El Zagal, uncle of Boalxiil. 

Ayxa la Hora. mother of Boabdil, and Queen of Granada. 

Thomas de Torquemada, Dominican friar. 

Donna Inez de Quexada, ( s^-nj^j-ds of rank 
Mendo de Quexada, \ ^P^^iaras ot rank. 

Amine, favorite slave of Boabdil. 



AMINE'S SONG. 



I. 

Softly, oh, softly glide, 

Gentle Music, thou silver tide, 

Bearing, the luli'd air along. 

This leaf from the Rose of Song ! 

To its port in his soul let it float, 

The frail but the fragrant boat — 

Bear it, soft Air, along ! 

11. 

^Vith the burden of Sound we are laden, 
Like the bells on the trees of Aden, 
When thev thrill with a tinkling tone 
At the wind from the Holy Throne. 
Hark ! as we move around, 
We shake off the buds of Sound — 
Thy presence, beloved, is Aden ! 



« 



LKILA. 151 

III. 

Sweet chime that I hear and wake, 
I would, for my loved one's sake, 
That I were a sound like thee, 
To the depths of his heart to flee. 

If my breath had its senses bless'd, 
If my voice in his heart could rest, 
What pleasure to die like theel 

Book I. Chap. 2. 

THE POWERS ABOVE. 

The powers above never doom man to perpetual sorrow or 
perpetual joy ; the cloud and the sunshine are alike essential to 
the heaven of our destinies. — Book I. Chap. 2. 

MUZA'S SERENADE. 

Light of my soul, arise, arise ! 
Thy sister lights are in the skies; 

We want thine eyes. 

Thy joyous eyes : 
The Night is mourning for thine eyes I 
The sacred verse is on my sword, 

But on my heart thy name : 
The words on each alike adored ; 

The truth of each the same. 
The same : — alas ! too well I feel 
The heart is truer than the steel ! 
Light of my soul, upon me shine ; 
Night wakes her stars to envy mine. 

Those eyes of thine, 

Wild eyes of thine. 
What stars are like those eyes of thine .^ 

Book I. Chap. 3. 

CONFESSION OF FERDINAND. 

" Yet Stay," said the king with an altered visage ; " follow 
me to my oratory within ; my heart is heavy, and I would fain 
seek the solace of the confessional.'' 

The monk obeyed ; and while Ferdinand, whose wonderful 
abilities were mingled with the weakest superstition — who per- 
secuted from policy, yet believed, in his own heart, that he 
punished but from piety — confessed, with penitent tears, the 
grave offences of aves forgotten and beads untold ; and while 
the Dominican admonished, rebuked, or soothed, neither prince 
nor monk ever dreamed that there was an error to confess in, 
or a penance to be adjudged to, the cruelty that tortured a 
fellow being, or the avarice that sought pretences for the extor- 
tion of a whole people. And yet we are told by some philoso- 
phers that his conscience is a sufficient guide to man ! — Book 
II. Chap. 6. 



152 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Leila's avowal of faith. 

" Alas ! " said Leila, obeying the instinct, and casting herself 
upon that rugged bosom, " I will dare, at least, not to disavow 
my God. Father ! by that dread anathema which is in our 
race, which has made us homeless and powerless, outcasts and 
strangers in the land ; by the persecution and anguish we have 
known, teach thy lordly heart that we are rightly punished for 
the persecution and the anguish we doomed to Him whose foot- 
step hallowed our native earth ! First, .in the history of the 

WORLD, DID THE STERN HEBREWS INFLICT UPON MANKIND THE 
AWFUL CRIME OF PERSECUTION FOR OPINION'S SAKE. The Setd 

we sowed hath brought forth the Dead Sea fruit upon which we 
feed. I asked for resignation and for hope. I looked upon 
yonder cross and I found both. Harden not thy heart ; listen 
to thy c\i\\A.—Book IV. Chap. 4. 

DESCRIPTION OF AMINE. 

Although the laws of the Eastern life confined to the narrow 
walls of a harem the sphere of Amine's gentle influence ; al- 
though, even in romance, the natural compels us to portray 
her vivid and rich colors only in a faint and hasty sketch ; yet 
still are left to the outline the loveliest and the noblest features 
of the sex ; the spirit to arouse us to exertion, the softness to 
console us in our fall ! — Book IV. Chap. 6. 

THE LAST SIGH OF BOABDIL. 

Then said his haughty mother, gazing at him with hard and 
disdainful eyes, in that unjust and memorable reproach which 
history has preserved, " Ay, weep like a woman over what thou 
couldst not defend like a man." 

Boabdil raised his countenance with indignant majesty, when 
he felt his hand tenderly clasped, and, turning round, saw 
Amine by his side. 

" Heed her not ! heed her not, Boabdil ! " said the slave ; 
" never didst thou seem to me more noble than in that sorrow. 
Thou wert a hero for thy throne ; but feel still, O light of mine 
eyes, a woman for thy people ! " 

" God is great ! " said Boabdil, " and God comforts me still ! 
Thy lips, which never flattered me in my power, have no re- 
proach for me in my affliction ! " 

He said, and smiled upon Amine ; it was ^^r hour of triumph. 

The band wound slowly on through the solitary defiles : and 
that place where the king wept and the woman soothed is still 
called, " El ultimo suspiro del Moro " — The last sigh of the 
Moor. — The E?id. 



THE PARISIANS. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Graham Vane, an author. 

Marquis Alain de Kerouec, son of the Marquis de Rochebriant. 

Frederic Lemercier, friend to Alain. 

LuciEN DuPLESSis, who devotes his talents to the Bourse. 

Valerie Duplessis, daughter of Lucien. 

Mr. Herbert, a notary. 

Count de Vandemar, cousin to Alain de Kerouec, 

P ^ Sons of the Count de Vandemar, the former "religious, 

■p ' \ moral, melancholy, and dignified," the latter "a lion of 

i^NGUERRAND, ^ ^j^^ ^^^^ water." 

ISAURA CicoGNA, an Italian singer and authoress, marries Graham Vane. 

SiGNORA Venosta, half-companion, half chaperone to Isaura. 

Madame Eulalie de Grantmesnil, an authoress of birth and fortune. 

Louvier, a great poet. 

M. Gandrin, an advocate. 

Col. and Mrs. Morley, an American couple. 

M. Savarin, a brilliant literary man. 

The Contessa Adeline di Riminl 

Victor de Mauleon, Vicomte. 

The Duchesse de Tarascon, a lady in the court of the Empress. 

M. Renard, a Paris detective. 



PREFATORY NOTES BY THE AUTHOR'S SON. 

*' The Parisians " and " Kenelm Chillingly " were begun about 
the same time, and had their common origin in the same cen- 
tral idea. That idea first found fantastic expression in " The 
Coming Race ; " and the three books, taken together, constitute 
a special group, distinctly apart from all the other works of 
their author. 

The satire of his earliest novels is a protest against false 
social respectabilities ; the humor of his later ones is a protest 
against the disrespect of social realities. By the first he sought 
to promote social sincerity and the free play of personal char- 
acter ; by the last, to encourage mutual charity and sympathy 
among all classes on whose inter-relation depends the character 
of society itself. But in these three books, his latest actions, 
the moral purpose is more definite and exclusive. Each of 
them is an expostulation against what seemed to him the peril- 
ous popularity of certain social and political theories, or a 



154 JV^T AND WISDOM OF BUL WER. 

warning against the influence of certain intellectual tendencies 
upon individual character and national life. This purpose, 
however, though common to the three fictions, is worked out in 
each of them by a different method. " The Coming Race " is 
a work of pure fancy, and the satire of it is vague and sportive. 
The outlines of a definite purpose are more distinctly drawn in 
" Chillingly " — a romance which has the source of its effect in a 
highly-wrought imagination. The humor and pathos of " Chil- 
lingly " are of a kind incompatible with the design of "The 
Parisians," which is a work of dramatic observation. " Chil- 
lingly " is a Romance ; " The Parisians " is a Novel. The sub- 
ject of " Chillingly " is psychological ; that of " The Parisians " 
is social. The author's object in " Chillingly " being to illus- 
trate the effect of " modern " ideas upon an individual char- 
acter, he has confined his narrative to the biography of that one 
character. Hence the simplicity of plot and the small number 
of dramatis personce ; whereby the work gains in height and 
depth what it loses in breadth of surface. " The Parisians," 
on the contrary, is designed to illustrate the effect of " modern 
ideas " upon a whole community. 

BEAUTY- WOMEN. 

There are certain " beauty-women," as there are certain 
" beauty-men," in whose features one detects no fault — who are 
the show figures of any assembly in which they appear-^but 
who, somehow or other, inspire no sentiment and excite no in- 
terest ; they lack some expression, whether of mind or of soul, 
or of heart, without which the most beautiful face is but a beau- 
tiful picture. — Book I, Chap. 7. 

THE IDEAL LIFE. 

Beside the real life expands the ideal life to those that seek 
it. Droop not, seek it ; the ideal life has its sorrows, but it 
never admits despair ; as on the ear of him who follows the 
winding course of a stream, the stream ever varies the notes of 
its music, now loud with the rush of the falls, now low and calm 
as it glides by the level marge of smooth banks ; now sighing 
through the stir of the reeds, now babbling with a fretful joy as 
some sudden curve on the shore stays its flight among gleaming 
pebbles ; — so to the soul of the artist is the voice of the art 
ever fleeting beside and before him. — Book I. Chap. 8. 

LE GERUSALEMME. 

But it was not till after I had read Le Gerusakinme again and 
again, and then sat and brooded over it, that I recognized the 



THE PARISIANS. 155 

main charm of the poem in the religion which clings to it as 
the perfume clings to a flower — a religion sometimes melan- 
choly, but never to me sad. Hope always pervades it. Surely, 
if, as you said, ''Hope is twin-born with art," it is because art 
at its highest blends itself unconsciously with religion, and pro- 
claims its affinity with hope by its faith in some future good 
more perfect than it has realized in the past. — Book I. Chap. 8. 

MUSIC THAT SPEAKS TO US. 

How little a libretto interprets an opera — how little we care 
even to read it ! It is the music that speaks to us ; and how ? 
— Through the human voice. We do not notice how poor are 
the words which the voice warbles. It is the voice itself in- 
terpreting the soul of the musician which enchains and enthralls 
us. — Book I. Chap. 8. 

WHAT IS LOVE. 

You question me about love : you ask if I have ever bowed 
to a master, ever merged my life in another's : expect no an- 
swer on this from me. Circe herself could give no answer to 
the simplest maid, who, never having loved, asks, "What is 
love ? " In the history of the passions each human heart is a 
world in itself ; its experience profit no others. In no two lives 
does love play the same part or bequeath the same record. — 
Book I. Chap. 8. 

LIFE AS AN ART.' 

I volunteer but this lesson, the wisest I can give, if thou 
canst understand it : as I bade thee take Art into thy life, so 
learn to look on life itself as an art. Thou couldst discover 
the charm in Tasso ; thou couldst perceive that the requisite of 
all art, that which pleases, is in the harmony of proportion. 
We lose sight of beauty if we exaggerate the feature most 
beautiful. — Book /. Chap. 8. 

THE HEART BLOWN HITHER AND THITHER. 

" Between you and me. Marquis, to men of our age, who have 
the business of life before them, and feel that if there be aught 
in which noblesse oblige it is a severe devotion to noble objects, 
there is nothing more fatal to such devotion than allowing the 
heart to be blown hither and thither at every breeze of mere 
fancy, and dreaming ourselves into love with some fair creature 
whom we never could marry consistently with the career we 
have set before our ambition. I could not marry an actress — 
neither, I presume, could the Marquis de Rochebriant; and 



1^6 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

the thought of a courtship, which exckided the idea of marriage, 
to a young orphan of name unblemished — of virtue unsuspected 
— would certainly not be compatible with 'devotion to noble 
objects.' " — Book II. Chap. 3. 

GREAT CHANGES WROUGHT BY MINORITIES. 

Does not history tell us that the great changes of the world 
have been wrought by minorities ? — but on the one condition 
that the minorities shall not be hopeless ? It is almost the 
other day that the Bonapartists were in a minority that their ad- 
versaries called hopeless ; and the majority for the Emperor is 
now so preponderant that I tremble for his safety. When a 
majority becomes so vast that intellect disappears in the crowd, 
the date of its destruction commences ; for by the law of reac- 
tion the minority is installed against it. It is the nature of 
things that minorities are always more intellectual than multi- 
tudes, and intellect is ever at work in sapping numerical force. 
What your party wants is hope ; because without hope there is 
no energy. I remember hearing my father say that when he 
met the Count de Chambord at Ems that illustrious personage 
delivered himself of a belle phrase much admired by his partisans. 
The Emperor was then President of the Republic, in a very 
doubtful and dangerous position. France seemed on the verge 
of another convulsion. A certain distinguished politician rec- 
ommended the Count de Chambord to hold himself ready to en- 
ter at once as a carrdidate for the throne. And the Count, with 
a benignant smile on his handsome face, answered, "All wrecks 
come to the shore — the shore does not go to the wrecks." — Book 
II. Chap. 3. 

PERSONS OF GENIUS. 

Perhaps many of my readers may have known friends engaged 
in some absorbing cause of thought, and who are in the habit 
when they go out, especially if on solitary walks, to take that 
cause of thought with them. The friend may be an orator med- 
itating his speech, a poet his verses, a lawyer a difficult case, a 
physician an intricate malady. If you have such a friend, and 
you observe him thus away from his home, his face will seem to 
you older and graver. He is absorbed in the care that weighs 
on him. When you see him in a holiday moment at his own 
fireside, the care is thrown aside ; perhaps he mastered while 
abroad the difficulty that had troubled him ; he is cheerful, 
pleasant, sunny. This appears to be very much the case with 
persons of genius. When in their own houses we usually find 
them very playful and childlike. Most persons of real genius, 



THE PARISIANS. 157 

whatever they may seem out of doors, are very sweet-tempered 
at home ; and sweet temper is sympathizing and genial in the 
intercourse of private life. — Book II. Chap. 4. 

THE EAR AN INDEX OF CHARACTER. 

Certainly the girl is very lovely. What long dark eyelashes, 
what soft, tender, dark-blue eyes — now that she looks up and 
smiles, what a bewitching smile it is ! — by what sudden play of 
rippling dimples the smile is enlivened and redoubled ! Do 
you notice one feature t in very showy beauties it is seldom no- 
ticed ; but I, being in my way a physiognomist, consider that it 
is always worth heeding as an index of character. It is the ear. 
Remark how delicately it is formed in her — none of that heavi- 
ness of lobe which is a sure sign of sluggish intellect and coarse 
perception. — Book II. Chap. 4. 

TWO KINDS OF NEATNESS. 

There are two kinds of neatness : one is too evident, and 
makes everything about it seem trite and cold and stiff, and an- 
other kind of neatness disappears from our sight in a satisfied 
sense of completeness — like some exquisite, simple, finished 
style of writing — an Addison's or a St. Pierre's. — Book II. 
Chap. 4. 

REVOLUTION " CE BON SATAN." 

" And therefore I venture to say this : if the archangel Gabriel 
were permitted to descend to Paris and form the best govern- 
ment for France that the wisdom of seraph could devise, it 
would not be two years — I doubt if it would be six months — be- 
fore out of this Paris, which you call the Foyer des Idees, would 
emerge a powerful party, adorned by yourself and other hommes 
de plume, in favor of a revolution for the benefit of ce bon Satan 
and ce cher petit Beelzebub." — Book II. Chap. 6. 

NAPOLEON III. 

Napoleon III. has been compared to Augustus ; and there 
are many startling similitudes between them in character and in 
fate. Each succeeds to the heritage of a great name that had 
contrived to unite autocracy with the popular cause. Each sub- 
dued all rival competitors, and inaugurated despotic rule in the 
name of freedom. Each mingled enough of sternness with am- 
bitious will to stain with bloodshed the commencement of his 
power; but it would be an absurd injustice to fir the same de- 
gree of condemnation on the coup d'etat as humanity fixes on 
the earlier cruelties of Augustus. Each once firm in his seat, 



158 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

became mild and clement : Augustus perhaps from policy, 
Napoleon III. from a native kindliness of disposition which no 
fair critic of character can fail to acknowledge. Enough of sim- 
ilitudes ; now for one salient difference. Observe how ear- 
nestly Augustus strove and how completely he succeeded in the 
task, to rally round him all the leading intellects in every grade 
and of every party — the followers of Antony, the friends of Bru- 
tus — every great captain, every great statesman, every great 
writer, every man who could lend a ray of mind to his own Ju- 
lian constellation and make the age of Augustus an era in the 
annals of human intellect and genius. But this has not been 
the good fortune of your Emperor. The result of his system 
has been the suppression of intellect in every department. He 
has rallied round him not one great statesman ; his praises are 
hymned by not one great poet. The cekbrites of former days 
stand aloof, or, preferring exile to constrained allegiance, assail 
him with unremitting missiles from their asylum in foreign 
chores. His reign is sterile of new celebrites. The few that 
arise enlist themselves against him. — Book II. Chap. 6. 

FAIR AND STATELY TREE. 

" There is many a fair and stately tree which continues to 
throw out its leaves and rear its crest till suddenly the wind 
smites it, and then, and not till then, the trunk which seems so 
solid is found to be but the rind of a mass of crumbled pow- 
der."' — Book II. Chap. 6. 

BORN OUT OF TIME. 

You say, trul}^ that the course of modern civilization has more 
or less affected the relative position of woman cultivated beyond 
that level on which she was formerly contented to stand — the 
nearer perhaps to the heart of man because not lifting her head 
to his height ; — and hence a sense of restlessness, uneasiness. 
But do you suppose that, in this whirl and dance of the atoms 
which compose the rolling ball of the civilized world, it is only 
women that are made restless and uneasy ? Do you not see, 
amid the masses congregated in the wealthiest cities of the world, 
writhings and struggles against the received order of things ? 
In this sentiment of discontent here is a certain truthfulness, 
because it is an element of human nature ; and how best to 
deal with it is a problem yet unsolved. But in the opinions and 
doctrines to which, among the masses, the sentiment gives birth, 
the wisdom of the wisest detects only the certainty of a common 
ruin, offering for reconstruction the same building-materials as 
the former edifice — materials not likely to be improved because 



THE PARISIANS. 159 

they may be defaced. Ascend from the working-classes to all 
others in which civilized culture prevails, and you will find that 
same restless feeling — the fiutteri-ng of untried wings against 
the bar between wider space and their lodgings. Could you 
poll all the educated ambitious young men in England — perhaps 
in Europe — at least half of them, divided between a reverence 
for the past, a curiosity as to the future, would sigh, " I am born 
a century too late or a century too soon ! " — Book II. Chap. 7. 

CONSULT YOUR OWN MIND. 

One word more, consult your own mind, and consider whether 
your uneasiness and unrest are caused solely by conventional 
shackles on your sex. Are they not equally common to the 
youth of ours ? — common to all who seek in art, in letters, nay, 
in the stormier field of active life, to clasp as a reality some 
image yet seen but as a dream ? — Book II. Chap. 7. 

FATES MOCK OUR RESOLVES. 

Certainly the Fates do seem to mock our resolves to keep our 
feet from their ambush and our hearts from their snare. How 
our lives may be colored by that which seems to us the most 
trivial accident, the merest chance ! — Book II. Chap. 8. 

INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 

But what recesses of mind, of heart, of soul, this untranslat- 
able language penetrates and brightens up ! How incomplete 
the grand nature of man — though man the grandest — would be 
if you struck out of his reason the comprehension of poetry, 
music, and religion ! In each are reached and are sounded 
deeps in his reason otherwise concealed from himself. History, 
knowledge, science, stop at the point in which mystery begins. 
There they meet with the world of shadow. Not an inch of that 
world can they penetrate without the aid of poetry and relig- 
ion, two necessities of intellectual man much more nearly al- 
lied than the votaries of the practical and the positive suppose. 
To the aid and elevation of both those necessities comes in 
music, and there has never existed a religion in the w^orld which 
has not demanded music as its ally. If, as I said frankly, it is 
only in certain moods of my mind that I enjoy music, it is only 
because in certain moods of my mind I am capable of quitting 
the guidance of prosaic reason for the world of shadow ; that I 
am so susceptible as at every hour, were my nature perfect, I 
should be to the mysterious influences of poetry and religion." — 
Book III. Chap. I. 



i6o WIT AND WISDOM OF PULWER. 

FATE, THE SERVANT OF PROVIDENCE. 

" Fate," answered Graham, slowly and thoughtfully — " Fate, 
which is not the ruler but the servant of Providence, decides 
our choice of life, and rarely from outward circumstances. Usu- 
ally the motive power is within. We apply the word genius to 
the minds of the gifted few ; but in all of us there is a genius 
that is inborn, a pervading something which distinguishes our 
very identity, and dictates to the conscience that which we are 
best fitted to do and to be. In so dictating it compels our 
choice of life ; or if we resist the dictate, we find at the close 
that we have gone astray." — Book III. Chap. 2. 

THE WORLD OF THE STATESMAN. 

" You show me that the world of the statesman lies apart 
from that of the artist. Yet " 

" Yet what ? " 

" May not the ambition of both be the same ? " 

" How so .? " 

" To refine the rude, to exalt the mean — to identify their own 
fame with some new beauty, some new glory, added to the treas- 
ure-house of all." — Book III. Chap. 2. 

SACRIFICE FOR THE BELOVED. 

But what is love if it can think any sacrifice, short of duty 
and honor, too great to offer up unknown, uncomprehended, to 
the one beloved. — Book III. Chap. 8. 

DISTINCTION BETWEEN GENIUS AND STRONG FEELING. 

What is the real distinction between the rare . genius and the 
commonalty of human souls that feel to the quick all the grand- 
est and divinest things which the rare genius places before them, 
sighing within themselves, " This rare genius does but express 
that which was previously familiar to us, so far as thought and 
sentiment extend ! " Nay, the genius itself, however eloquent, 
never does, never can, express the whole of the thought or the 
sentiment it interprets ; on the contrary, the greater the genius 
is, the more it leaves a something of incomplete satisfaction on 
our minds — it promises so much more than it performs, it im- 
plies so much more than it announces. lam impressed with 
the truth of what I thus say in proportion as I re-peruse and re- 
study the greatest writers that have come within my narrow 
range of reading. And by the greatest writers I mean those 
who are not exclusively reasoners (of such I cannot: judge), nor 
mere poets (of whom, so far as concerns the union of words with 
music, I ought to be able to judge), but the few who unite rea- 



THE PARISIANS. i6i 

son and poetry and appeal at once to the common sense of the 
multitude and the imagination of the few. The highest type of 
this union to me is Shakespeare ; and I can comprehend the jus- 
tice of no criticism on him which does not allow this sense 
of incomplete satisfaction augmenting in proportion as the 
poet soars to his highest. I ask again, in what consists this dis- 
tinction between the rare genius and the commonalty of minds 
that exclaim, " He expresses what we feel, but never the whole 
of what we feel ! " Is it the mere power over language, a large 
knowledge of dictionaries, a finer ear for period and cadence, a 
more artistic craft in casing our thoughts and sentiments in well- 
selected words ? Is it true what Buffon says, "-that the style is 
the man ? " Is it true what I am told Goethe said, " Poetry is 
form .'* " I cannot believe this ; and if you tell me it is true, then I 
no longer pine to be a writer. But if it be not true, explain to me 
how it is that the greatest genius is popular in proportion as it 
makes itself akin to us by uttering in better words than we em- 
ploy that which was already within us, brings to light what in 
our souls was latent, and does but correct, beautify, and publish 
the correspondence which an ordinary reader carries on privately 
every day between himself and his mind or his heart. — Book IV, 
Chap. I. 

HOW NEAR HEAVEN. 

Oh, how near we should be to heaven could we live daily, 
hourly, in the presence of one the honesty of whose word we 
could never doubt, the authority of whose word we could never 
disobey! — Book IV. Chap. i. 

SYMPATHY AND LOVE. 

It has always seemed to me that for love, love such as I con- 
ceive it, there must be a deep and constant sympathy between 
two persons — not, indeed, in the usual and ordinary trifles of 
taste and sentiment, but in those essentials which form the root 
of character and branch out in all the leaves and blooms that ex- 
pand to the sunshine and shrink from the cold, — that the world- 
ling should wed the w^orldling, the artist the artist. Can the 
realist and the idealist blend together, and hold together till 
death and beyond death ? If not, can there be true love be- 
tween them ? By true love I mean the love which interpene- 
trates the soul, and, once given, can never die. — Book IV. Chap. 3. 

AFTER RESULTS OF EFFECTS FIDELITY TO ART. 

Who shall say what may be the after-results of those effects 
which the waiters on posterity presume to despise because they 
II ■ 



i62 IV/T AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

are immediate ? A dull man, to whose mind a ray of that vague 
starlight undetected in the atmosphere of workday life has never 
yet travelled ; to whom the philosopher, the preacher, the poet, 
appeal in vain — nay, to whom the conceptions of the grandest 
master of instrumental music are incomprehensible ; to whom 
Beethoven unlocks no portal in heaven ; to whom Rossini has 
no mysteries on earth unsolved by the critics of the pit, — sudden- 
ly hears the human voice of the human singer, and at the sound 
of that voice the walls which inclosed him fall. The something 
far from and beyond the routine of his commonplace existence 
becomes known to him. He of himself, poor man, can make 
nothing of it. He cannot put it down on paper, and say the 
next morning, " I am an inch nearer to heaven than I was last 
night ; " but the feeling that he is an inch nearer to heaven abides 
with him. Unconsciously he is gentler, he is less earthly, and 
in being nearer to heaven he is stronger for earth. You singers 
do not seem to me to understand that you have — to use your 
own word, so much in vogue that it has become abused and 
trite — a missiofi. When you talk of missions, from whom comes 
the mission ? Not from men. If there be a mission from man 
to men, it must be appointed from on high. 

Think of all this ; and in being faithful to your art, be true to 
yourself. If you feel divided between that art and the art of 
the writer, and acknowledge the first to be too exacting to admit 
a rival, keep to that in which you are sure to excel. Alas, my 
fair child ! do not imagine that we writers feel a happiness in 
our pursuits and aims more complete than that which you can 
command. If we care for fame (and, to be frank, we all do), 
that fame does not come before us face to face — a real, visible, 
palpable form, as it does to the singer, to the actress. I grant 
that it may be more enduring, but an endurance on the length 
of which we dare not reckon. A writer cannot be sure of im- 
mortality till his language itself be dead; and then he has but 
a share in an uncertain lottery. Nothing but fragments remain 
of the Phrynichus, who rivalled ^Eschylus; of the Agathon, who 
perhaps excelled Euripides ; of the Alcaeus, in whom Horace 
acknowledged a master and a model ; their renown is not in their 
works, it is but in their names. And, after all, the names of 
singers and actors last perhaps as long. Greece retains the name 
of Polus, Rome of Roscius, England of Garrick, France of Talma, 
Italy of Pasta, more lastingly than posterity is likely to retain 
mine. You address to me a question which I have often put to 
myself — "What is the distinction between the writer and the 
reader, when the reader says, ' These are my thoughts, these are 
my feelings ; the writer has stolen them, and clothed them in his 



THE PARISIANS. 163 

own words ' ? " And the more the reader says this, the more 
wide is the audience, the more genuine the renown, and, para- 
dox though it seems, the more consummate the originality of the 
writer. But no, it is not the mere gift of expression, it is not the 
mere craft of the pen, it is not the mere taste in arrangement of 
word and cadence, which thus enables the one to interpret the 
mind, the heart, the soul of the many. It is a power breathed 
into him as he lay in his cradle, and a pov/er that gathered 
around itself, as he grew up, all the influences he acquired, 
whether from observation of external nature, or from study of 
men and books, or from that experience of daily life which varies 
with every human being. No education could make two intel- 
lects exactly alike, as no culture can make two leaves exactly 
alike. How truly you describe the sense of dissatisfaction 
which every writer of superior genius communicates to his ad- 
mirers ! how truly do you feel that the greater is the dissatisfac- 
tion in proportion to the writer's genius and the admirer's con- 
ception of it t But that is the mystery which makes — let me 
borrow a German phrase — the cloud-land between the finite and 
the infinite. The greatest philosopher, intent on the secrets of 
Nature, feels that dissatisfaction in Nature herself. The finite 
cannot reduce into logic and criticism the infinite. — Book IV. 
Chap. 3. 

NO PRESCRIBING SELECTION. 

There is no prescribing to men or to women whom to select, 
whom to refuse. I cannot refute the axiom of the ancient poet, 
*' In love there is no wherefore." — Book IV. Chap. 3. 

AFFINITIES OF GENIUS. 

If, my dear reader, whether you be man or woman, you have 
come into familiar contact with some creature of a genius to 
which, even assuming that you yourself have a genius in its own 
way, you have no special affinities, have you not felt shy with 
that creature .'' Have you not, perhaps, felt how intensely you 
could love that creature, and doubted if that creature could pos- 
sibly love you ? Now, I think that shyness and that disbelief 
are common with either man or woman, if, however conscious 
of superiority in the prose of life, he or she recognizes inferior- 
ity in the poetry of it. And yet this self-abasemerrt is exceed- 
ingly mistaken. The poetical kind of genius is so grandly indul- 
gent, so inherently deferential, bows with Such 'unaffected mod- 
esty to the superiority in which it fears it may fail (yet seldom 
does fail) — the superiority of common sense. And when we 
come to woman, what marvellous truth is conveyed by the womnn 



1 64 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

who has had no superior in intellectual gifts among her own sex ! 
Corinne, crowned at the Capitol, selects out of the whole world, 
as the hero of her love, no rival poet and enthusiast, but a cold- 
blooded sensible Englishman. — Book IV. Chap. 4. 

MISTAKING FANCY FOR LOVE. 

Provided only you love him. Ah, child, be sure of that. Do 
not mistake fancy for love. All women do not require love in 
marriage, but without it that which is best and highest in you 
would wither and die. — Book IV. Chap. 3. 

MEN DIFFIDENT WHEN LOVING. 

How is it that men worth a woman's loving become so diffident 
when they love intensely ? Even in ordinary cases of love there 
is so ineffable a delicacy in Virgin woman, that a man, be he 
how refined soever, feels himself rough and rude and coarse in 
comparison. — Book IV. Chap. 4. 

PUBLIC OPINION. 

" You do not answer — you evade me," said the Duchesse, 
with a mournful smile. " You are too skilled a man of the world, 
M. Enguerrand, not to know that it is not only legislators and 
ministers that are necessary to the support of a throne and the 
safeguard of a nation. Do you not see how great a help it is to 
both throne and nation when that section of public opinion 
which is represented by names illustrious in history, identified 
with records of chivalrous deeds and loyal devotion, rallies 
round the order established ? Let that section of public opinion 
stand aloof, soured and discontented, excluded from active 
life, lending no counterbalance to the perilous oscillations of dem- 
ocratic passion, and tell me if it is not an enemy to itself as 
well as a traitor to the principles it embodies t " — Book V. 
Chap. 2. 

WOMEN AS LETTER-WRITERS. 

It is characteristic, perhaps, of the different genius of the sexes, 
that woman takes to written composition more impulsively, more 
intuitively, than man — letter-writting, to him a task-work, is to 
her a recreation. Between the age of sixteen and the date of 
marriage, six well-educated clever girls out of ten keep a journal 
and one well-educated man in ten thousand does. So, without 
serious and settled intention of becoming an author, how natur- 
ally a girl of ardent feeling and vivid fancy seeks in poetry or 
romance a confessional — an out-pouring of thought and senti- 
ment, which are mysteries to herself till she has given them 



i 



THE PARISIANS. 165 

words — and which, frankly revealed on the page, she would not, 
perhaps could not, utter orally to a living ear ! — Book V. Chap. 9. 

THE YOUNG WRITER. 

Who cannot conceive what the young writer feels, especially 
the young woman-writer, when hearing the first cheery note of 
praise from the lips of a writer of established fame ? — Book V. 
Chap. 9. 

WORK OF THE YOUNG WRITER. 

Every young writer knows how his work, if one of feeling, 
will color itself from some truth in his innermost self, and in 
proportion as it does so, how his absorption in the work in- 
creases, till it becomes part and parcel of his own mind and 
heart. The presence of a hidden sorrow may change the fate 
of the beings he has created, and guide to the grave those 
whom, in a happier vein, he would have united at the altar. It 
is not till a later stage of experience and art that the writer 
escapes from the influence of his own personality and lives in 
existences that take no colorings from his own. Genius usually 
must pass through the subjective process before it gains the 
objective. Even a Shakespeare represents himself in the Son- 
nets before no trace of himself is visible in a Falstaff or a 
Lear. — Book VI. Chap. 4. 

POLITICIAN WITHOUT BELIEF. 

As no community can exist without a belief of some kind, 
so a politician without belief can but help to destroy ; he cannot 
reconstruct. — Book VI. Chap. 4. 

IMPORTANCE OF MATTERS OF SENTIMENT. 

Alas ! in matters of sentiment it is the misfortune of men 
that even the most refined of us often grate upon some senti- 
ment in a woman, though she may not be romantic — not roman- 
tic at all, as people go, — some sentiment which she thought 
must be so obvious if we cared a straw about her, and which, 
though we prize her above the Indies, is, by our dim, horn-eyed, 
masculine vision, undiscernible. It may be something in itself 
the airiest of trifles, — the anniversary of a day on which the 
first kiss was interchanged, nay, of a violet gathered, a misun- 
derstanding cleared up ; and of that anniversary we remember 
no more than we do of our bells and coral. But she — she re- 
members it ; it is no bells and coral to her. Of course, much 
is t3 be said in excuse of man, brute though he be. Consider 
the multiplicity of his occupations, the practical nature of his 



i66 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

cares. But, granting the validity of all such excuse, there is in 
man an original obtuseness of fibre as regards sentiment in 
comparison with the delicacy of woman's. It comes, perhaps, 
from the same hardness of constitution which forbids us the 
luxury of ready tears. Thus it is very difficult for the wisest 
man to understand thoroughly a woman. Goethe says some- 
where that the highest genius in man must have much of the 
woman in it. If this be true, the highest genius alone in man 
can comprehend and explain the nature of woman ; because it 
is not remote from him, but an integral part of his masculine 
self. I am not sure, however, that it necessitates the highest 
genius, but rather a special idiosyncrasy in genius, which the 
highest may or may not have. I think Sophocles a higher 
genius than Euripides; but Euripides has that idiosyncrasy, and 
Sophocles not. I doubt whether women would accept Goethe 
as their interpreter with the same readiness with which they 
would accept Schiller. Shakspeare, no doubt, excels all poets 
in the comprehension of women, in his sympathy with them in 
the woman-part of his nature which Goethe ascribes to the 
highest genius ; but, putting aside that "monster," I do not re- 
member any English poet whom we should consider conspicu- 
ously eminent in that lore, unless it be the prose poet, nowadays 
generally underrated and little read, who wrote the letters of 
Clarissa Harlowe. — Book VI. Chap. 4. 

LOVE FOR WOMAN REVERENTIAL. 

Isaura was one of those women for whom, even in natures the 
least chivalric, love — however ardent — cannot fail to be accom- 
panied with a certain reverence — the reverence with which the 
ancient knighthood, in its love for women, honored the ideal 
purity of womanhood itself. — Book VI. Chap. 5. 

A WOMAN OF MIND. 

I believe, be it said with diffidence, that a woman of mind so 

superior that the mind never pretends to efface the heart, is less 

intoxicated with flattery than a man equally exposed to it. It 

is the strength of her heart that keeps her head sober. — Book 

VII Chap. 3. 

STRONG RULING MOTIVE. 

A Strong ruling motive is required to persist in any regular 
course of action that needs effort : the motive with the majority 
of men is the need of subsistence : with a large number (as in 
trades or professions), not actually want, but a desire of gain 
and perhaps of distinction, in their calling, the desire of pro- 



THE PARISIANS. 167 

fessional distinction expands into the longings for more compre- 
hensive fame, more exalted honors, with the few who become 
great writers, soldiers, statesmen, orators. — Book VII. Chap. 4. 

HISTORY OF COURTSHIP. 

There is a circumstance in the history of courtship familiar to 
* the experience of many women, that while the suitor is pleading 
his cause his language may touch every fibre in the heart of his 
listener, yet substitute, as it were, another presence for his own. 
She may be saying to herself, " Oh that another had said those 
words ! " and be dreaming of the other, while she hears the one, 
—Book VII. Chap. 4. 

ROMANCE. 

"That which you contemptuously call romance," said Isaura, 
" is not essential only to poets and artists. The most real side 
of every life, from the earliest dawn of mind in the infant, is the 
romantic. 

"When the child is weaving flower-chains, chasing butterflies, 
or sitting apart and dreaming what it will do in the future, 
is not that the child's real life, and yet, is it not also the ro- 
mantic ? " 

" But there comes a time when we weave no flower-chains 
and chase no butterflies." 

" Is it so ? — still on one side of life, flowers and butterflies 
may be found to the last ; and at least to the last are there no 
dreams of the future ? Have you no such dreams at this mo- 
ment .'' and without the romance of such dreams, would there 
be any reality to human life which could distinguish it from the 
life of the weed that rots on Lethe t " — Book VII. Chap. 6. 

AGE OF THE HEART. 

" 'Tis not by the gray of the hair that one knows the age of 
the heart."— ^^^/^ VII. Chap. 6. 

REALIZING THE IDEAL. 

Nothing in the nature of man, be he the best and the cleverest, 
can ever realize the dream of a girl who is pure and has genius. 
Ah, is not the converse true ? What girl, the best and the 
cleverest, comes up to the ideal of even a commonplace man — 
if he ever dreamed of an ideal ! " — Book VII. Chap. 6. 

SUDDEN CHANGE FOR THE BRIGHTER. 

On waking some morning, have you ever felt, reader, as if a 
change for the brighter in the world, without and within you, 



i68 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

had suddenly come to pass — some new glory has been given to 
the sunshine, some fresh balm to the air — you feel younger, 
and happier, and lighter, in the very beat of your heart — you 
almost fancy you hear the chime of some spiritual music far off, 
as if in the deeps of heaven ? You are not at first conscious 
how, or wherefore, this change has been brought about. Is it 
the effect of a dream in the gone sleep that has made this 
morning so different from mornings that have dawned before ? 
And while vaguely asking yourself that question, you become 
aware that the cause is no mere illusion, that it has its substance 
in words spoken by living lips, in things that belong to the 
work-day world. — Book IX. Chap, i, • 

THE PAST INFLUENCING THE PRESENT. 

There are some things in our past which influence the pres- 
ent, but to which we dare not assign a future — on which we 
cannot talk to another. What soothsayer can tell us if the 
dream of a yesterday will be renewed on the night of a morrow .? 
— Book IX. Chap. I. 

MEN SO VAIN. 

Men are so vain — they care for us so much more when people 
praise us. But, till we have put the creatures in their proper 
place we must take them for what they are. — Book IX. Chap. 2. 

HOPE IS FEMALE. 

'•^ La speranza e femmina " (Hope is female). 

" Alas ! " said Isaura, half mournfully, half smiling — " alas ! 
do you not remember what the poet replied when asked what 
disease was most mortal ? — ' the hectic fever caught from the 
chill of hope.' ''—Book IX. Chap. 2, 

AMERICANS FRANK QUESTIONERS. 

The Americans enjoy the reputation of being the frankest 
putters of questions whom liberty of speech has yet educated 
into les recherches de la verite. — Book IX. Chap. 3. 

THE TRUEST ELOQUENCE. 

The truest eloquence is that which holds us too mute for ap- 
plause. — Book IX. Chap. 4. 

MEN AND WOMEN ALIKE. 

Men and women are much more like each other in certain 
large elements of character than is generally supposed ; but it is 
that very resemblance which makes their differences the more 



THE PARISIANS. 169 

incomprehensible to each other ; just as in politics, theology, or 
that most disputatious of all things disputable — metaphysics — 
the nearer the reasoners approach each other in points that to 
an uncritical bystander seem the most important, the more sure 
they are to start off in opposite directions upon reaching the 
speck of a pin-prick. 

Now, there are certain grand meeting-places between man 
and woman — the grandest of all is on the ground of love, and 
yet here also is the great field of quarrel. And here the teller 
of a tale such as mine ought, if he is sufficiently wise to be 
humble, to know that it is almost profanation if, as man, he 
presumes to enter the penetralia of a woman's innermost heart, 
and repeat, as a man would repeat, all the vibrations of sound 
which the heart of a woman sends forth undistinguishable even 
to her own ear. — Book IX. Chap. 11. 

LOVE ENNOBLES. 

Love so noble ennobles those who hear its voice. — Book IX. 
Chap. 14. 

A THOROUGH PARISIAN. 

Duplessis smiled grimly : " What a thorough-bred Parisian 
you are, my dear Frederic ! I believe if the trump of the last 
angel were sounding, the Parisians would be divided into two 
sets ; one would be singing the Marseillaise and parading the 
red flag ; the other would be shrugging their shoulders and say- 
ing, ' Bah ! as if le Bofi Dieu would have the bad taste to injure 
Paris — the Seat of the Graces, the School of the Arts, the 
Fountain of Reason, the Eye of the World ; and so be found by 
the destroying angel caressing poodles and making bons mots 
about les femmes.^ " — Book X. Chap. 2 

FRETS AND CHECKS, 

Among the frets and checks to the course that " never did 
run smooth," there is one which is sufficiently frequent, for 
many a reader will remember the irritation it caused him. You 
have counted on a meeting with the beloved one unwitnessed 
by others, an interchange of confessions and vows which others 
may not hear. You have arranged almost the words in which 
your innermost heart is to be expressed ; pictured to yourself 
the ver}'- looks by which those words will have their sweetest 
reply. The scene you have thus imagined appears to you vivid 
and distinct as if foreshown in a magic glass. And suddenly, 
after long absence, the meeting takes place in the midst of a 
common companionship : nothing that you wished to say can 



170 WIT AND WISDOM OF BUL WER. 

be said. The scene you pictured is painted out by the irony of 
Chance ; and groups and backgrounds of which you had never 
dreamed start forth from the disappointing canvas. Happy if 
that be all ! But sometimes, by a strange subtle intuition, you 
feel that the person herself is changed ; and sympathetic with 
that change a terrible chill comes over your own heart. — Book 
XL Chap. I. 

EMOTIONS SUDDENLY NARROWED. 

But are there not moments in life when the human heart sud- 
denly narrows the circumference to which its emotions are ex- 
tended ? As the ebb of a tide, it retreats from the shores it had 
covered on its flow, drawing on with contracted waves the treas- 
ure-trove it has selected to hoard amid its deeps. — Book XT, 
Chap. I. 

THE NAME OF WIFE. 

" Isaura, there is one name which I can never utter without a 
reverence due to the religion which binds earth to heaven — a 
name which to man should be the symbol of life cheered and 
beautified, exalted, hallowed. That name is ' wife.' Will you 
take that name from me 1 " — Book XI. Chap. 3. 

IRONY AN UNGRACIOUS WEAPON. 

I, who know the world and mankind, advise you, who do not, 
never to meet a man who wishes to do you a kindness with an 
ungracious sarcasm. Irony is a weapon I ought to be skilled 
in, but weapons are used against enemies, and it is only a tyro 
who flourishes his rapier in the face of his friends. — Book XI. 
Chap. 15. 

SYMPATHY IN CHOICE, 

No matter what a man's doctrines may be, — however abom- 
inable you and I may deem them — man desires to find in the 
dearest fellowship he can establish, that sympathy in the woman 
his choice singles out from her sex — deference to his opinions, 
sympathy with his objects, as man. — Book XI Chap. 16. 

INFLUENCE OF NATURE AKIN. 

I think all, or most of us have known what it is to pass under 
the influence of a nature that is so far akin to ours that it de- 
sires to become something better and higher than it is — that 
desire being paramount in ourselves — but seeks to be that 
something in ways not akin to, but remote from, the ways in 
which we seek it. When this contact happens, either one na- 



THE PARISIANS. 171 

ture, by the mere force of will, subjugates and absorbs the 
other, or both while preserving their own individuality, apart 
and independent, enrich themselves by mutual interchange ; 
and the asperities which differences of taste and sentiment in 
detail might otherwise provoke melt in the sympathy which 
unites spirits striving with equal earnestness to rise nearer to 
the unseen and unattainable Source, which they equally recog- 
nize as Divine. — Book XI. Chap. 16. 

THROUGH DISCIPLINE TO FREEDOM. 

In life, as in art, it is through discipline that we arrive at 
freedom, and duty only completes itself when all motives, all 
actions, are attuned into one harmonious whole, and it is not 
striven for as duty, but enjoyed as happiness. — Book XI. Chap. 
16. 

YEARNINGS FOR DIVINE LOVE. 

There is a time in the lives of most of us, and especially in 
the lives of women, when, despondent of all joy in an earthly 
future, and tortured by conflicts between inclination and duty, 
we transfer all the passion and fervor of our troubled souls to 
enthusiastic yearnings for the Divine Love ; seeking to rebaptize 
ourselves in the fountain of its mercy, taking thence the only 
hopes that can cheer, the only strength that can sustain us. — 
Book XI. Chap. 16. 

TWO VOICES OF NATURE. 

There are two voices of Nature in the soul of the genuine 
artist, — that is, of him who, because he can create, compre- 
hends the necessity of the great Creator. Those voices are 
never both silent. When one is hushed, the other becomes dis- 
tinctly audible. The one speaks to him of Art, the other of 
Religion. — Book XI. Chap. 16. 

HAVE MORE CHARITY. 

The Abbe's mild brow contracted. " Have more charity, my 
daughter. It is because Raoul's sorrow for his lost brother is 
so deep and so holy that he devotes himself more than ever to 
the service of the Father which is in heaven. He said, a day 
or two after the burial, when plans for a monument to Enguer- 
rand were submitted to him, ' May my prayer be vouchsafed, 
and my life be a memorial of him more acceptable to his gentle 
spirit than monuments of bronze or marble. May I be divinely 
guided and sustained in my desire to do such good acts as he 
would have done had he been spared longer to earth. And 
whenever tempted to weary, may my conscience whisper, Be- 



172 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

tray not the trust left to thee by thy brother, lest thou be not 
reunited to him at last.' " — Book XII. Chap. 3. 

PARISIAN SOCIETY. 

Ah ! it is easy to declaim against the frivolities and vices, of 
Parisian society as it appears on the surface ; and in revolution- 
ary times it is the very worst of Paris that ascends in scum to 
the top. But descend below the surface, even in that demoral- 
izing suspense of order, and nowhere on earth might the angel 
have beheld the image of humanity more amply vindicating its 
claim to the heritage of heaven. — Book XI. Chap. 16. 

VAIN PERSONS. 

In vain persons, be they male or female, there is a compla- 
cent self-satisfaction in any momentary personal success, how- 
ever little that success may conduce to — nay, however much it 
may militate against — the objects to which their vanity itself 
devotes its more permanent desires. A vain woman may be 

very anxious to win A , the magnificent, as a partner for 

life, and yet feel a certain triumph when a glance of her eye has 

made an evening's conquest of the pitiful B , although by 

that achievement she incurs the imminent hazard of losing 
A altogether. — Book XII. Chap. 8. 

THE CHAIN OF DESTINY. 

For my part, I believe that throughout the whole known his- 
tory of mankind, even in epochs when reason is most misled 
and conscience most perverted, there runs visible, though fine 
and threadlike, the chain of destiny, which has its roots in the 
throne of an All-wise and All-good ; that in the wildest illusions 
by which multitudes are frenzied, there may be detected gleams 
of prophetic truths ; that in the fiercest crimes which, like the 
disease of an epidemic, characterize a peculiar epoch under ab- 
normal circumstances, there might be found instincts or aspira- 
tions towards some social virtues to be realized ages afterwards 
by happier generations, all tending to save man from despair of 
the future, were the whole society to unite for the joyless hour 
of his race in the abjuration of soul and the denial of God, be- 
cause all irresistibly establishing that yearning towards an un- 
seen future which is the leading attribute of soul, evincing the 
government of a divine Thought which evolves out of the dis- 
cords of one age the harmonies of another, and, in the world 
within us as in the world without, enforces upon every un- 
clouded reason the distinction between Providence and Chance. 
- — L' Envoi. 



THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Albert Trevylyan, \ u ^ *t, j i 
Gertrude Vane, \ betrothed lovers. 

Mr. Vane, father of Gertrude. 



PREFACE TO PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 

With the younger class of my readers, this work has had the 
good fortune to find especial favor; perhaps because it is in it- 
self a collection of the thoughts and sentiments that constitute 
the Romance of youth. It has little to do with the positive 
truths of our actual life, and does not pretend to deal with the 
larger passions and more stirring interests of our kind. It is 
but an episode out of the graver epic of human destinies. It 
requires no explanation of its purpose, and no analysis of its 
story ; the one is evident, the other simple : — the first seeks but 
to illustrate visible nature through the poetry of the affections ; 
the other is but the narrative of the most real of mortal sorrows 
which the Author attempts to take out of the region of pain, by 
various accessories from the Ideal. The connecting tale itself 
is but the string that binds into a garland the wild flowers cast 
upon a grave. 

The descriptions of the Rhine have been considered by Ger- 
mans sufficiently faithful to render this tribute to their land and 
their legends one of the popular guide-books along the course 
it illustrates ; especially to such tourists as wish not only to 
take in with the eye the inventory of the river, but to seize the 
peculiar spirit which invests the wave and the bank with a 
beauty that can only be made visible by reflexion. 

LOVE OF THE SOUL. 

Consumption, but consumption in its most beautiful shape, 
had set its seal upon Gertrude Vane, when Trevylyan first saw 
her, and at once loved. He knew the danger of the disease ; 
he did not, except at intervals deceive himself; he wrestled 
against the new passion ; but, stern as his nature was, he could 
not conquer it. He loved, he confessed his love, and Gertrude 
returned it. 



174 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

In a love like this there is something ineffably beautiful — it is 
essentially the poetry of passion. Desire grows hallowed by 
fear, and, scarce permitted to indulge its vent in the common 
channel of the senses, breaks forth into those vague yearnings — 
those holy aspirations, which pine for the Bright, the Far, the 
Unattained. It is " the desire of the moth for the star " — it is 
the love of the soul ! — Chap. 2. 

FICTIONS OF THE UNSEEN WORLD. 

Is there not a truth also in our fictions of the Unseen World ? 
Are there not yet bright lingerers by the forest and the 
stream ? Do the moon and the soft stars look out on no deli- 
cate and winged forms bathing in their light ? Are the fairies 
and the invisible hosts but the children of our dreams ; and not 
their inspiration ? Is that all a delusion which speaks from the 
golden page ? And is the world only given to harsh and anx- 
ious travellers, that walk to and fro in pursuit of no gentle 
shadows ? Are the chimeras of the passions the sole spirit of 
the Universe ? No ! while my remembrance treasures in its 
deepest cell the image of one no more, — one who was " not of 
the earth, earthy," — one in whom love was the essence of 
thoughts divine — one whose shape and mould, whose heart and 
genius, would — had Poesy never before have dreamed it — have 
called forth the first notions of spirits, resembling mortals but 
not of them ; — no, Gertrude ! while I remember you, the faith, 
the trust in brighter shapes and fairer natures than the world 
knows of, comes clinging to my heart ; and still will I think that 
Fairies might have watched over your sleep, and Spirits have 
ministered to your dreams. — Chap. 2. 

TREVYLYAN'S SONG. 



As leaves left darkling in the flush of day, 

When glints the glad sun checkering o'er the tree 

I see the green earth brightening in the ray, 
Which only casts a shadow upon me ! 

II. 

What are the beams, the flowers, the glory, all 
Life's glow and gloss — the music and the bloom, 

When every sun but speeds the Eternal Pall, 
And time is Death that dallies with the Tomb } 

III. 

And yet — oh yet, so young, so pure ! — the while 

Fresh laugh the rose-hues round youth's morning sky, 

That voice — those eyes — the deep love of that smile, 
Are they not soul — all soul — and can they die .'* 



THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 175 

IV. 

Are there the words, " No More" for thoughts like ours? 

Must the bark sink upon so soft a wave ? 
Hath the short summer of thy life no flowers 

But those which bloom above thine early grave ? 

V. 

O God ! and what is life, that I should live 

(Hath not the world enow of common clay?) 
And she — the Rose — whose life a soul could give 

To the void desert, sigh its sweets away ? 

VI. 

And I that love thee thus, to whom the air, 

Blest by thy breath, makes heaven where'er it be, 

Watch thy cheek wane, and smile away despair — 
Lest it should dim one hour yet left to thee. 

VII. 

Still let me conquer self, — oh, still conceal 

By the smooth brow the snake that coils below ; 

Break, break my heart, it comforts yet to feel 
That she dreams on, unwaken'd by my woe ) 

VIII. 

Hush'd, where the Star's soft angel loves to keep 
Watch o'er their tide, the mourning waters roll ; 

So glides my spirit — darkness in the deep, 
But o'er the wave the presence of thy soul ! 

Chap. 3. 

LOVE AT FIRST MEETING. 

There is such a thing as love at the first meeting — a secret, an 
unaccountable affinity between persons (strangers before), which 
draws them irresistibly together. As if there were truth in Pla- 
to's beautiful phantasy, that our souls were a portion of the 
stars, and that spirits, thus attracted to each other, have drawn 
their original light from the same orb, and yearn for a renewal 
of their former union. — Chap. 4. 

EXCLUSION OF THE WORLD. 

Perhaps after we have seen the actual world, and experienced 
its hollow pleasures, we can resign ourselves the better to its ex- 
clusion ; and as the cloister, which repels the ardor of our hope, 
is sweet to our remembrance, so the darkness loses its terror 
when experience has wearied us with the glare and travail of 
the day. — Chap. 4. 

LIFE HAS ALWAYS ACTION. 

Life has alwavs action ; it is our own fault if it ever be dull : 
youth has its enterprise, manhood its schemes ; and even if in- 
firmity creep upon age, the mind, the mind still triumphs over 



176 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER 

the mortal clay, and in the quiet hermitage, among books, and 
from thoughts, keeps the great wheel within everlastingly in 
motion. No, the better class of spirits have always an antidote 
to the insipidity of a common career, they have ever energy at 
will. — Chap. 5. 

CONSOLATIONS OF VIRTUOUS ACTION. 

The same consolation awaits us in action as in repose. We 
sedulously pursue what we deem to be true glory. We are ma- 
ligned : but our soul acquits us. Could it do more in the scan- 
dal and the prejudice that assail us in private life .'* You are 
silent ; but note how much deeper should be the comfort, how 
much loftier the self-esteem ; for if calumny attack us in a wil- 
ful obscurity, what have we done to refute the calumny } How 
have we served our species ? Have we " scorned delights, and 
lived laborious days ? " Have we made the utmost of the " tal- 
ent " confided to our care ? Have we done those deeds to our 
race upon which we can retire, — an " Estate of Beneficence," — 
from the malice of the world, and feel that our deeds are our de- 
fenders ? This is the consolation of virtuous actions ; is it so 
of — even a virtuous — indolence .'' — Chap. 5. 

CONSCIOUSNESS OF ENDEAVOR. 

" If the consciousness of perpetual endeavor to advance our 
race be not alone happier than the life of ease, let us see what 
this vaunted ease really is. Tell me, is it not another name for 
€?tnui? This state of quiescence, this objectless, dreamless tor- 
por, this transition dti lit a la table, de la table au lit ; what more 
dreary and monotonous existence can you devise "i Is it pleas- 
ure in this inglorious existence to think that you are serving 
pleasure ? Is it freedom to be the slave to self ? For I hold," 
continued Trevylyan, " that this jargon of * consulting happiness,' 
this cant of living for ourselves, is but a mean, as well as a false 
philosophy. Why this eternal reference to self t Is self alone 
to be consulted ? Is even our happiness, did it truly consist in 
repose, really the great end of life ? I doubt if we cannot as- 
cend higher. I doubt if we cannot say with a great moralist, 
'If virtue be not estimable in itself, we can see nothing estima- 
ble in following it for the sake of a bargain.' But, in fact re- 
pose is the poorest of all delusions ; the very act of recurring to 
self, brings about us all those ills of self from which, in the 
turmoil of the -world, we can escape. We become hypochondri- 
acs. Our very health grows an object of painful possession. 
We are so desirous to be well (for what is retirement without 
health ?), that we are ever fancying ourselves ill; and, like the 



THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 177 

man in the Spectator., we weigh ourselves daily, and live by 
grains and scruples. Retirement is happy only for the poet, for 
to him it is 7iot retirement. He secedes from one world but to 
gain another, and he finds not enniU in seclusion : why — not be- 
cause seclusion hath repose., but because it hath occtipation. In 
one word, then, I say of action and of indolence, grant the same 
ills to both, and to action there is the readier escape or the no- 
bler consolation." — Chap. 5. 

A JOURNEY PLEASANT. 

" How little it requires to make a journey pleasant, when the 
companions are our friends ! " said Gertrude, as they sailed 
along. " Nothing can be duller than these banks ; nothing 
more delightful than this voyage." 

" Yet what tries the affections of people for each other so se- 
verely as a journey together.?" said Vane. ^'That perpetual 
companionship from which there is no escaping; that confine- 
ment, in all our moments of ill-humor and listlessness, with per- 
sons who want us to look amused. — Ah, it is a severe ordeal for 
friendship to pass through ! A post-chaise must have jolted 
many an intimacy to death." — Chap. 6. 

THE CELL AND THE CONVENT. 

Alas ! the cell and the convent are but a vain e-mblem of 
that desire to fly to God which belongs to Distress ; the soli- 
tude soothes, but the monotony recalls, regret. And for my 
own part, in my frequent tours through Catholic countries, I 
never saw the still walls in which monastic vanity hoped to shut 
out the world, but a melancholy came over me ! What hearts 
at war with themselves ! — what unceasing regrets ! — what pin- 
ings after the past ! — what long and beautiful years devoted to 
a moral grave, by a momentary rashness — an impulse — a dis- 
appointment ! But in these churches the lesson is more impres- 
sive and less sad. The weary heart has ceased to ache — the 
burning pulses are still — the troubled spirit has flown to the 
only rest which is not a deceit. Power and love — hope and 
fear — avarice — ambition, they are quenched at last! Death is 
the only monastery — the tomb is the only cell. — Chap. 7. 

LOOKING BACK TO LIFE OF ONE LOVED. 

In looking back to the life of one we have loved, how dear is 
the thought that the latter days were the days of light, that the 
cloud never chilled the beauty of the setting sun, and that if 
the years of existence were brief, all that existence has most 
tender, most sacred, was crowded into that space ! Nothing 
12 



178 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

dark, then, or bitter, rests with our remembrance of the lost, we 
are the mourners, but pity is not for the mourned — our grief is 

• purely selfish ; when we turn to its object, the hues of happiness 
are round it, and that very love which is the parent of our woe 

'was the consolation, the triumph, of the departed! — Chap. 7. 

THE FAIRY'S REPROACH. 

I. 

By the glow-worm's lamp in the dewy brake ; 

By the gossamer's airy net ; 
By the shifting skin of the faithless snake ; 
Oh, teach me to forget : 
For none, ah none, 
Can teach so well that human spell 
As Thou, false one ! 
II. 
By the fairy dance on the greensward smooth ; 

By the winds of the gentle west ; 
By the loving stars, when their soft looks soothe 
The waves on their mother's breast ; 
Teach me thy lore ! 
By which, like withered flowers, 
The leaves of buried Hours 
Blossom no more. 

III. 

By the tent in the violet's bell ; 

By the May on the scented bough. 
By the lone green isle where my sisters dwell ; 
And thine own forgotten vow ; 
Teach me to live. 
Nor feed on thoughts that pine 
For love so false as thine ! 
Teach me thy lore, 
And one thou lov'st no more 
Will bless thee and forgive ! 

Chap. 10. 

DEAREST PREROGATIVE OF GENIUS. 

If genius has one prerogative dearer than the rest, it is that 
which enables it to do honor to the dead — to revive the beauty, 
the virtue that are no more ; to wreathe chaplets that outlive 
the day round the urn which were else forgotten by the world ! 

When the poet mourns, in his immortal verse, for the dead, 
tell me not that fame is in his mind ! it is filled by thoughts, by 
emotions that shut out the living. He is breathing to his 
genius — to that sole and constant friend, which has grown up 
with him from his cradle — the sorrows too delicate for human 
sympathy ; and when afterwards he consigns the confession to 
the crowd, it is indeed from the hope of honor, — honor not for 
himself, but for the being that is no more. — Chap. 16. 



THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 179 

TWO LIVES TO EACH OF US. 

There are two lives to each of us, gliding on at the same 
time, scarcely connected with each other ! — the life of our ac- 
tions, the life of our minds ; the external and the inward his- 
tory; the movements of the frame, the deep and ever-restless 
workings of the heart ! They who have loved know that there is 
a diary of the affections, which we might keep for years without 
having occasion even to touch upon the exterior surface of life, 
our busy occupations — the mechanical progress of our ex- 
istence ; yet by the last we are judged, the first is never known. 
History reveals men's deeds, men's outward characters, but not 
themselves. There is a secret self that hath its own life 
" rounded by a dream," unpenetrated, unguessed. — Chap. 22. 

ACTION A LETHE. 

Action is that Lethe in which alone we forget our former 
dreams, and the mind that, too stern not to wrestle with its 
emotions, seeks to conquer regret, must leave itself no leisure to 
look behind. Who knows what benefits to the world may have 
sprung from the sorrows of the benefactor.? As the harvest 
that gladdens mankind in the suns of autumn was called forth 
by the rains of spring, so the griefs of youth may make the fame 
of maturity. — Chap. 22. 

DEATH VINDICATED. 

"^And why," said the beautiful Shape, with a voice soft as the 
last sighs of a dying babe ; " why trouble ye the air with spells ? 
mine is the hour and the empire, and the storm is the creature 
of my power. Far yonder to the west it sweeps over the sea, 
and the ship ceases to vex the waves ; it smites the forest, and 
the destined tree, torn from its roots, feels the winter strip the 
gladness from its boughs no more ! The roar of the elements is 
the herald of eternal stillness to their victims ; and they who 
hear the progress of my power idly shudder at the coming of 
peace. And thou, O tender daughter of the fairy kings ! why 
grievest thou at a mortal's doom ? Knowest thou not that 
sorrow cometh with years, and that to live is to mourn ? 
Blessed is the flower that, nipped in its early spring, feels not 
the blast that one by one scatters its blossoms around it, and 
leaves but the barren stem. Blessed are the .young whom I 
clasp to my breast, and lull into the sleep which the storm can- 
not break, nor the morrow arouse to sorrow or to toil. The 
heart that is stilled in the bloom of its first emotions, — that 
turns with its last throb to the eye of love, as yet unlearned in 
the possibility of change, — has exhausted already the wine of 



i8o WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

life, and is saved only from the lees. As the mother soothes 
to sleep the wail of her troubled child, I open my arms to the 
vexed spirit, and my bosom cradles the unquiet to repose ! " — 
Chap. 26. 

THE FEET OF YEARS. 

The feet of years fall noiseless ; we heed, Ave note them not, 
till tracking the same course we passed long since, we are 
startled to find how deep the impression they leave behind. To 
revisit the scenes of our youth is to commune with the ghost of 
ourselves. — Chap. 26. 

CONVULSIONS OF NATURE. 

In the convulsions of Nature we forget our own separate ex- 
istence, our schemes, our projects, our fears ; our dreams vanish 
back into their cells. One passion only the storm quells not, 
and the presence of Love mingles with the voice of the 
fiercest storms as with the whispers of the southern wind. — 
Chap. 26. 

UNITS IN THE SUM OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. 

In the immense sum of human existence, what is a single 
unit ? Every sod on which we tread is the grave of some former 
being : yet is there something that softens without enervating the 
heart in tracing in the life of another those emotions that all of 
us have known ourselves. For who is there that has not, in his 
progress through life, felt all its ordinary business arrested, and 
the varieties of fate commuted into one chronicle of the affec- 
tions ? Who has not watched over the passing away of some 
being, more to him, at that epoch, than all the world t And 
this unit, so trivial to the calculation of others, of what inesti- 
mable value was it not to him ? Retracing in another such rec- 
ollections, shadowed and mellowed down by time, we feel the 
wonderful sanctity of human life, we feel what emotions a single 
being can wake : what a world of hope may be buried in a 
single grave. And thus we keep alive within ourselves the soft 
springs of that morality which unites us with our kind, and sheds 
over the harsh scenes and turbulent contests of earth the color- 
ing of a common love. — Chap. 28. 

THE GRAVES OF THE PAST. 

The seasons, like ourselves, track their course, by something 
of beauty, or of glory, that is left behind. As the traveller in 
the land of Palestine sees tomb after tomb rise before him, the 
landmarks of his way, and the only signs of the holiness of the 



THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 



i»i 



soil ; thus Memory wanders over the most sacred spots in its 
various world, and traces them but by the graves of the Past. — 
Chap. 28. 

LIFE ONLY A PART OF OUR CAREER. 

Let us forget that we are mortal ; let us remember only that 
life is a part, not the whole of our career ; let us feel in this 
soft hour, and while yet we are unsevered, the presence of The 
Eternal that is within us, so that it shall not be as death, but as 
a short absence ; and when once the pang of parting is over, you 
must think only that we are shortly to meet again. — Last Chap- 
ter. 



THE IDEAL WORLD. 



4 



OUR DREAMS BELONG TO THE IDEAL — THE DIVINER LOVE FOR WHICH 
YOUTH SIGHS, NOT ATTAINABLE IN LIFE — BUT THE PURSUIT OF THAT 
LOVE, BEYOND THE WORLD OF THE SENSES, PURIFIES THE SOUL, AND 
AWAKES THE GENIUS — PETRARCH — DANTE. 

I. 

Thine are the Dreams that pass the Ivory Gates, 

With prophet shadows haunting poet eyes I 
Thine the beloved illusions youth creates 

From the dim haze of its own happy skies. 
In vain we pine — we yearn on earth to win 

The being of the heart, our boyhood's dream. 
The Psyche and the Eros ne'er have been, 

Save in Olympus, wedded ! — As a stream 
Glasses a star, so life the Ideal love; 
Restless the stream below — serene the orb above 1 
Ever the soul the senses shall deceive ; 
Here custom chill, there kinder fate bereave : 
For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows ! 
And Eden's flowers for Adam's mournful brows I 
We seek to make the moment's angel guest 

The household dweller at a human hearth; 
We chase the Bird of Paradise, whose nest 

Was never found amid the bowers of earth.* 

Yet loftier joys the vain pursuit may bring. 

Than sate the senses with the boons of time; 
The bird of Heaven hath still an upward wing. 

The steps it lures and still the steps that climb. 
And in the ascent, altho' the soil be bare. 
More clear the daylight and more pure the air, 

Let Petrarch's heart the human mistress lose, , 

He mourns the Laura, but to win the Muse. a ' 

Could all the charms which Georgian maids combine ■ 

Delight the soul of the dark Florentine, 
* Like one chaste dream of childlike Beatrice 

Awaiting Hell's dark pilgrim in the skies, 
Snatch'd from below to be the guide above. 
And clothe Religion in the form of Love ? t 

* According to a belief in the East, which is associated with one of the 
loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superstitions, the Bird of Paradise is 
never seen to rest upon the earth — and its nest is never to be found. 

t It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in the form 
of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision of Heaven, he allegorizes 
Religious Faith. 



THE IDEAL WORLD. 183 

O, thou true Iris ! sporting on thy brow 

Of tears and smiles — Jove's herald, Poetry ! 
Thou reflex image of all joy and woe — 

Both fused in light by thy dear phantasy ! 
Lo ! from the clay how Genius lifts its life, 

And grows one pure Idea — one calm soul ! 
True, its own clearness must reflect our strife ; 

True, its completeness must comprise our whole : 
But as the sun transmutes the sullen hues 

Of marsh-grown vapors into vermeil dyes, 
And melts them later into twilight dews, 

Shedding on flowers the baptism of the skies ; 
So glows the Ideal in the air we breathe — 

So from the fumes of sorrow and of sin, 
Doth its warm light in rosy colors wreathe 

Its playful cloud-land, storing balms within. 
O thou blood-stain'd Ideal of the free. 
Whose breath is heard in clarions — Liberty ! 
Sublimer for thy grand illusions past, 
Thou spring'st to Heaven — Religion at the last. 
Alike below, or commonwealths, or thrones, 
Where'er men gather some crush'd victim groans, 
Only in death thy real form we see. 
All life is bondage — souls alone are free. 

Yet whatsoever be our bondage here. 
All have two portals to the Phantom sphere, — 
Who hath not glided through those gates that ope, 
Beyond the Hour, to Memory or to Hope ! 
Give Youth the Garden, — still it soars above — 
Seeks some far glory — some diviner love. 
Place Age amidst the Golgotha — its eyes 
Still quit the graves, to rest upon the skies ; 
And while the dust, unheeded, moulders there, 
Track some lost angel through cerulean air. 

On yonder green two orphan children play'd; 

By yonder rill two plighted lovers stray'd. 

In yonder shrine two lives were blent in one, 

And joy-bells chimed beneath a summer sun. 

Poor was their lot — their bread in labor found ; 

No parent bless'd them, and no kindred own'd ; 

They smiled to hear the wise their choice condemn; 

They loved — they loved — and love was wealth to them. 

Hark — one short week — again the holy bell ! 

Still shone the sun ; but dirge-like boom'd the knell 

The icy hand had sever'd breast from breast ; 

Left Life to toil, and summon'd Death to rest. 

Full fifty years since then have pass'd away. 

Her cheek is furrow' d, and her hair is gray. 

Yet, when she speaks of him (the times are rare), 

Hear in her voice how youth still trembles there 

The very name of that young life that died. 

Still heaves the bosom, and recalls the bride. 

Lone o'er the widow's hearth those years have fled. 

The daily toil still wins the daily bread; 



1 



184 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

No books deck sorrow with fantastic dyes : 

Her fond romance her woman heart supplies ; 

And, happy in the few still moments given, 

(Day's taskwork done) — to memory, death, and heaven, 

To that unutter'd poem may belong 

Thoughts of such pathos as had beggar'd song. 

VIII. 

HENCE IN HOPE, MEMORY, AND PRAYER, ALL OF US ARE POETS. 

Yes, while thou hopest, music fills the air. 

While thou rememberest, life re-clothes the clod ; 
"While thou canst feel the electric chain of prayer. 

Breathe but a thought, and be a soul with God ! 
Let not these forms of matter bound thine eye, 

He who the vanishing point of Human things 
Lifts from the landscape — lost amidst the sky, 

Has found the Ideal which the poet sings — « 

Has pierced the pall around the senses thrown, I ! 

And is himself a poet — tho' unknown. 

X. 

APPLICATION OF THE POEM CONTINUED — THE IDEAL LENDS ITS AID TO 
THE MOST FAMILIAR AND THE MOST ACTUAL SORROW OF LIFE — FICTION 
COMPARED TO SLEEP — IT STRENGTHENS WHILE IT SOOTHES. 

Trite were the tale I tell of love and doom, 

(Whose life hath loved not, whose not mourn'd a tomb?) 

But fiction draws a poetry from grief, 

As art its healing from the wither'd leaf. 

Play thou, sweet Fancy, round the sombre truth, 

Crown the sad Genius ere it lower the torch ! 
When death the altar, and the victim youth. 

Flutes fill the air, and garlands deck the porch, ■ 

As down the river drifts the Pilgrim sail, ■ 

Clothe the rude hill-tops, lull the Northern gale 
With childlike lore the fatal course beguile, 
And brighten death with Love's untiring smile 
Along the banks let fairy forms be seen 
" By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen." 
Let sound and shape to which the sense is dull 
Haunt the soul opening on the Beautiful, 
And when at length, the symbol voyage done, — 
Surviving Grief shrinks lonely from the sun. 
By tender types show Grief what memories bloom 
From lost delight — what fairies guard the tomb. 
Scorn not the dream, O world-worn, — pause awhile. 
New strength shall nerve thee as the dreams beguile, 
Strung by the rest — less far shall seem the goall 
As sleep to life, so fiction to the soul. 



KENELM CHILLINGLY: 

HIS ADVENTURES AND OPINIONS. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Sir Peter Chillingly, the representative of an ancient family. 

Lady Chillingly, wife of Sir Peter. 

Kenelm Chillingly, son of Sir Peter. 

Chillingly Gordon, distant cousin of Sir Peter. 

Chillingly Gordon, Jr., son of the above. 

Chillingly Mivers, the chief proprietor of "The Londoner." 

Rev. John Stalv^orth Chillingly, an adherent to the creed of what is 

called " muscular humanity " and a fine specimen of it. 
Miss Margaret ) 

Miss Sybil > Chillingly, maiden sisters of Sir Peter. 

Miss Sarah ) 

Mr. Welby, a man of letters, elegant scholar, and effective writer. 
Squire Leopold Travers, a man of wealth and influence. 
Cecilia Travers, only daughter of Squire Travers. 

Mrs. Campion, a widow of literary distinction living with Cecilia Travers. 
Hon. George Belvotr, eldest son of the richest nobleman of the country. 
Lady Glenalvon, one of the queens of the London world. 
Mr. Melville, an artist. 

Lily Mordaunt, in reality the orphan daughter of Alfred Fletwode. 
Mrs. Cameron, in reality Lily's aunt, a Miss Fletwode. 
Tom Bowles, a reformed man, owing to Kenelm Chillingly. 



THE VALE OF TEARS. 

The vale of tears is not without a smile. — Book I. Chap. 3. 

THE BABY. 

The Baby returned the gaze of its relations with the most 
contemptuous indiiference. Miss Sibyl was the first to pro- 
nounce an opinion on the Baby's attributes. Said she, in a sol- 
emn whisper — "What a heavenly mournful expression ! it seems 
so grieved to have left the angels ! " 

The Rev. John. — " That is prettily said, cousin Sibyl ; but 
the infant must pluck up courage and fight its way among mor- 
tals with a good heart, if it wants to get back to the angels 
again." — Book I. Chap. 3. 



i86 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 

There are two schools of thought for the formation of charac- 
ter — the Real and Ideal. I would form the character in the 
Ideal school, in order to make it bolder and grander and love- 

^lier when it takes place in that every-da)^ life which is called 
the Real. — Book I. Chap. 9. 

I 

I ART AND SCIENCE. 

Art gifts with soul all matter that it contemplates ; Science 
turns all that is already gifted with soul into matter. — Book /. 
Chap. 14. 

" BUT." 

"'But,' Mrs. Bowles, is a word that cools many a warm im- 
pulse, stifles many a kindly thought, puts a dead stop to many 
a brotherly deed. Nobody would ever love his neighbor as 
himself if he listened to all the Buts that could be said on the 
other side of the question." — Book II. Chap. 14. 

CONTENT. 

There are times when the troubles of life are still ; 
The bees wandered lost in the depths of June, 
* And I paused where the chime of a silver rill 

Sang the linnet and lark to their rest at noon. 

Said my soul, " See how calmly the wavelets glide, 
Though so narrow their way to their ocean-vent : 

And the world that I traverse is wide, is wide, 
And yet is too narrow to hold content." 

*'0 my soul, never say that the world is wide — 

The rill in its banks is less closely pent ; 
It is thou who art shoreless on every side, 

And thy width will not let thee inclose content." 

Book II. Chap. 16. 

GOOD SURGEON AND GOOD POET. 

The good surgeon and the good poet are they who understand 
the living man. — Book II. Chap. 16. 

MIND AND MATTER. 

It is the supernatural within us — viz., Mind — which can alone 
guess at the mechanism of the natural — viz.. Matter. A stone 
cannot question a stone. — Book II. Chap. 16. 

man's helpmate. 
Cecilia was one of those women whom heaven forms for man's 
helpmate — who, if he were born to rank and wealth, would, as 



KENELM CHILLINGLY. 187 

his partner, reflect on them a new dignity, and add to their en- 
joyment by bringing forth their duties — who, not less if the 
husband she chose were poor and struggling, would encourage, 
sustain, and soothe him, take her own share of his burdens, and 
temper the bitterness of life with the all-recompensing sweet- 
ness of her smile. — Book III. Chap. i. 

AS STRONG, BE GENTLE. 

As you are strong, be gentle ; as you can love one, be kind 
to all ; as you have so much that is grand as Man — that is, the 
highest of God's works on earth, — let all your acts attach your 
manhood to the idea of Him to whom the voice of the bell ap- 
peals. — Book III. Chap. 7. 

THE FLOWER-GIRL AT THE CROSSING. 

By the muddy crossing in the crowded streets 

Stands a little maid with her basket full of posies, 

Proffering all who pass her choice of knitted sweets, 
Tempting Age with heart's-ease, courting Youth with roses. 

Age disdains the heart's-ease, 

Love rejects the roses ; 
London life is busy — 

Who can stop for posies ? 

One man is too grave, another is too gay — 

This man has his hot-house, that man not a penny; 

Flowerets too are common in the month of May, 
And the things most common least attract the many. 

Ill on London crossings 

Fares the sale of posies ; 
Age disdains the heart's-ease, 

Youth rejects the roses. 



Book III. Chap. 9. 



LOVE S QUARREL. 



Standing by the river, gazing on the river, 

See it paved with starbeams ; heaven is at our feet. 
Now the wave is troubled, now the rushes quiver ; 
" Vanished is the starlight — it was a deceit. 

Comes a little cloudlet 'twixt ourselves and heaven, 
And from all the river fades the silver track ; 

Put thine arms around me, whisper low, " Forgiven ! "• — 
See how on the river starlight settles back. 

THE BEST TEACHER. 

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogma- 
tizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself. — 
Book III Chap. 1 1 . 



i88 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

PERSONS SO NATURAL. 

There are persons so natural that they seem affected to those 
who do not understand them. — Book III. Chap. 17. 

" OUGHT TO BE." 

" Alas and alas ! that ' ought to be ; ' what depths of sorrow- 
ful meaning lie within that simple phrase ! How happy would 
be our lives, how grand our actions, how pure our souls, if all 
could be with us as it ought to be ! " — Book IV. Chap. 7. 

DUTY DIFFICULT. 

A duty may be a very difficult thing, a very disagreeable 
thing, and, what is strange, it is often a very invisible thing. It 
is present — close before us, and yet we don't see it; somebody 
shouts its name in our ear, " Duty," and straight it towers be- 
fore us a grim giant. — Book V. Chap. 5. 

DOMINANT PASSIONS OF LIFE. 

Kenelm came into a recess which bounded his steps and in- 
vited him to repose. It was a circle, so formed artificially by 
slight trellises, to which clung parasite roses heavy with leaves 
and flowers. In the midst played a tiny fountain with a silvery 
murmuring sound ; at the background, dominating the place, 
rose the crests of stately trees on which the sunlight shimmered, 
but which rampired out all horizon beyond. Even as in life do 
the great dominant passions — love, ambition, desire of power, 
or gold, or fame, or knowledge — form the proud background to 
the brief lived flowerets of our youth, lift our eyes beyond the 
smile of their bloom, catch the glint of a loftier sunbeam, and 
yet, and yet, exclude our sight from the lengths and the widths 
of the space which extends behind and beyond them. — Book V. 
Chap. 4. 

THE BEAUTY OF THE MISTRESS IS IN THE LOVER's EYE. 

" Is she not pretty, my Mabel May ? 
Nobody ever yet called her so. 
Are not her lineaments faultless, say "i 
If I must answer you plainly — No. 

" Joy to believe that the maid I love 
None but myself as she is can see ; 
Joy that she steals from her heaven above 
And is only revealed on this earth to me ! " 

A LITTLE PRAISE. 

How a little praise warms out of a man the good that is in 
him, and the sneer of a contempt which he feels to be unjust 
chills the ardor to excel ! — Book VIII. Chap. 3. 



KENELM CHILLINGLY. 189 

THE GOOD MAN. 

The good man does good merely by living. And the good 
he does may often mar the plans he formed for his own happi- 
ness. But he cannot regret that Heaven has permitted him to 
do gooA,— Book VIII. Chap, 8. 

"victory or WESTMINSTER ABBEY." 

"I was not dreaming; I was telling myself that the time had 
come to replace the old Kenelm with the new ideas, by a new 
Kenelm with the Ideas of Old. Ah ! perhaps we must — at 
whatever cost to ourselves, — we must go through the romance 
of life before we clearly detect what is grand in its realities. I 
can no longer lament that I stand estranged from the objects 
and pursuits of my race. I have learned how much I have with 
them in common. I have known love ; I have known sorrow." 

Kenelm paused a moment, only a moment, then lifted the 
head which, during that pause, had drooped, and stood erect at 
the full height of his stature ; startling his father by the change 
that had passed over his face ; lip — eye — his whole aspect elo- 
quent with a resolute enthusiasm, too grave to be the flash of a 
passing moment. 

"Ay, ay," he said, "Victory or Westminster Abbey! The 
world is a battle-field in which the worst wounded are the de- 
serters, stricken as they seek to fly, and hushing the groans that 
would betray the secret of their inglorious hiding-place. The 
pains of wounds received in the thick of the fight is scarcely 
felt in the joy of service to some honored cause, and is amply 
atoned by the reverence for noble scars. My choice is made. 
Not that of deserter, that of soldier in the ranks." 

" It will not be long before you rise from the ranks, my boy, 
if you hold fast to the Idea of Old, symbolized in the English 
battle-cry : ' Victory or Westminster Abbey.' " 

So saying. Sir Peter took his son's arm, leaning on it proudly : 
and so, into the crowded thoroughfares, from the halting-place 
on the modern bridge that spans the legendary river, passes 
the Man of the Young Generation to fates beyond the verge of 
the horizon to which the eyes of my generation must limit their 
wistful gaze. — The End, 



RIENZI, 

THE LAST OF THE ROMAN TRIBUNES. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Cola di Rienzi, the hero, and liberator of Rome. 

Nina di Raselli, " the idol and tyrant of her parents," wife of Rienzi. 

Irene, sister of Rienzi. 

Adrian di Castello, a distant kinsman of the Colonna. 

Stephen Colonna, the most powerful noble of Rome. 

Walter de Montreal, Knight of St. John, a bold adventurer. 

Angelo Villani, in reality the son of Walter de Montreal. 

Raimond, the Bishop of Orvietto. 

Giles, Cardinal d'Albornoz. 

Pandulfo, a wealthy man of letters. 

Cecco del Vecchio, one of " the people." 

Martino di Porto, of the great House of the Orsini. 



Preserving generally the real chronology of Rienzi's life, the 
plot of this work extends over a space of some years, and em- 
braces the variety of characters necessary to a true delineation 
of events. The story, therefore, cannot have precisely that or- 
der of interest found in fiction strictly and genuinely dramatic, 
in which (to my judgment at least) the time ought to be as 
limited as possible, and the characters as few ; — no new charac- 
ter of importance to the catastrophe being admissible towards 
the end of the work. If I may use the word Epic in its most 
modest and unassuming acceptation, this Fiction, in short, though 
indulging in dramatic situations, belongs, as a whole, rather to 
the Epic than the Dramatic school. — Extract from Preface, 

PATRIOTISM AND LOVE. 

What state could fall, what liberty decay, if the zeal of man's 
noisy patriotism were as pure as the silent loyally of a woman's 
love ? — Book I. Chap. 7. 

REVENGE AND PATRIOTISM. 

Nothing so inspires human daring as the fond belief that it is 
the agent of a Diviner Wisdom. Revenge and patriotism united 



RIENZL 191 

in one man of genius and ambition — such are the Archimedean 
levers that find in fanaticism the spot out of the world by which 
to move the world. The prudent man may direct a state ; but 
it is the enthusiast who regenerates it — or ruins. — Book I. 
Chap, 8. 



'&^ 



MEDIATOR BETWEEN PASSIONS AND PARTIES. 

He who takes no share in the commencement of civil revolu- 
tions, can often become, with the most effect, a mediator be- 
tween the passions and the parties subsequently formed. — Book 
II. Chap. 3. 

man's soul SUSTAINS HIM. 

What then, sustains a man in such a situation, following his 
own conscience, with his eyes open to all the perils of the path ? 
Away with the cant of public opinion, — away with the poor de- 
lusion of posthumous justice ; he will offend the first, he will 
never obtain the last. What sustains him ? His own soul ! 
A man thoroughly great has a certain contempt for his kind 
while he aids them ; their weal or woe is all ; their applause 
— their blame — are nothing to him. He walks forth from 
the circle of birth and habit ; he is deaf to the little motives 
of little men. High, through the widest space his orbit 
may describe, he holds on his course to guide or to en- 
lighten ; but the noises below reach him not ! Until the wheel 
is broken, — until the dark void swallow up the star, — it makes 
melody, night and day, to its own ear : thirsting for no sound 
from the earth it illumines, anxious for no companionship in 
the path through which it rolls, conscious of its own glory, and 
contented, therefore, to be alo7ie I 

But minds of this order are rare. All ages cannot produce 
them. They are exceptions to the ordinary and human virtue, 
which is influenced and regulated by external circumstance. At 
a time when even to be merely susceptible to the voice of fame 
was a great pre-eminence in moral energies over the rest of man- 
kind, it would be impossible that any one should ever have 
formed the conception of that more refined and metaphysical 
sentiment, that purer excitement to high deeds — that glory in 
one's own heart, which is so inmeasurably above the desire of a 
renown that lackeys the heels of others. In fact, before we 
can dispense with the world, we must, by a long and severe no- 
vitiate — by the probation of much thought, and much sorrow — 
by deep and sad conviction of the vanity of all that the world 
can give us, have raised ourselves — not in the fervor of an hour, 
but habitually — above the world : an abstraction — an idealism — 



192 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

which, in our wiser age, how few, even of the wisest, can attain ! 
Yet, till we are thus fortunate, we know not the true divinity of 
contemplation, nor the all-sufficing mightiness of conscience ; 
nor can we retreat with solemn footsteps into that Holy of 
Holies in our own souls, wherein we know, and feel, how much 
our nature is capable of the self-existence of a God ! — Book II. . 
Chap. 3. 

THE PAST A GUIDE FOR THE FUTURE. 

Let the past perish ! — Let darkness shroud it ! — let it sleep 
forever over the crumbling temples and desolate tombs of its 
forgotten sons, — if it cannot afford us, from its disburied secrets, |] 
a guide for the present and the future. What, my lords, ye 
have thought that it was for the sake of antiquity alone that we 
have wasted our nights and days in studying what antiquity can 
teach us. You are mistaken ; it is nothing to know what we 
have been, unless it is with the desire of knowing that which we 
ought to be. Our ancestors are mere dust and ashes, save when 
they speak to our posterity ; and then their voices resound, not 
from the earth below, but the heaven above. There is an elo- 
quence in memory, because it is the nurse of hope. There is sanc- 
tity in the past, but only because of the chronicles it retains, — 
chronicles of the progress of mankind, — stepping-stones in civil- 
ization, in liberty, and in knowledge. Our fathers forbid us to 
recede, they teach us what is our rightful heritage, they bid us 
reclaim, they bid us augment, that heritage, — preserve their 
virtues, and avoid their errors. These are the true uses of the 
past. Like the sacred edifice in which we are, — it is a tomb 
upon which to rear a temple. — Book II. Chap. 3. 

BANISH CIVIL DISCORDS. 

Banish these civil discords, or the men— how proud, how great 
soever — who maintain them ! Pluck the scales from the hand 
of Fraud ! — the sword from the hand of Violence ! — the balance- 
and the sword are the ancient attributes of Justice !— restore 
them to her again ! This be your high task,— these be your 
great ends ! Deem any man who opposes them a traitor to his 
country. Gain a victory greater than those of the Caesars— a 
victory over yourselves \ — Book II. Chap. 3. 

WHEN REVOLUTIONS CANNOT BE WARDED OFF. 

There are times when a revolution cannot be warded off ; it 
must come — come alike by resistance or by concession. Woe to 
that race in which a revolution produces no fruits !— in which 
the thunderbolt smites the high place, but does not purify the 



RIENZI. 193 

air ! To suffer in vain is often the lot of the noblest individu- 
als ; but when a people suffer in vain, let them curse themselves ! 
— Book II. Chap. 3. 

TRUE BOAST OF A PATRICIAN. 

May the people hereafter find, that the true boast of a patri- 
cian is, that his power the better enables him to serve his coun- 
try. — Book II. Chap. 3. 

REFORM AND THE REFORMER. 

However august be the object we propose to ourselves, every 
less worthy path we take to insure it distorts the mental sight of 
our ambition ; and the means, by degrees, abase the end to their 
own standard. This is the true misfortune of a man nobler 
than his age — that the instruments he must use soil himself ; 
half he reforms his times ; but half, too, the times will corrupt 
the reformer. His own craft undermines his safety, — the peo- 
ple, whom he himself accustoms to a false excitement, perpetu- 
ally crave it ; and v/hen their ruler ceases to seduce their fancy, 
he falls. their victim. The reform he makes by these means is 
hollow and momentary — it is swept away with himself ; it was 
but the trick — the show — the wasted genius of a conjurer ; the 
curtain falls — the magic is over — the cup and balls are kicked 
aside. Better one slow step in enlightenment, — which being made 
by the reason of a whole people, cannot recede, — than these 
sudden flashes in the depth of the general night, which the dark- 
ness, by contrast doubly dark, swallows up everlastingly again. 
— Book II. Chap. 4. 

VALOR NEED NOT PRAY TO FORTUNE. 

" Valor need never pray to Fortune," said the knight ; " the 
first commands the last." — Book II. Chap. 4. 

THE ROMAN HYMN OF LIBERTY. 

" Let the mountains exult around ! * 
On her seven-hill'd throne renown'd, 
Once more old Rome is crown'd ! 

Jubilate 1 

Sing out, O Vale and Wave ! 
Look up from each laurell'd grave, 
Bright dust of the deathless brave ! 

Jubilate ! 

* " Exultent in circuito Vestro Montes," etc. — Let the mountains exult 

around ! So begins Rienzi's letter to the Senate and Roman people, pre- 
served by Hocsemius. 
13 



194 yf^IT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Pale Vision, what art thou ? — Lo, 
From Time's dark deeps, 
Like a Wind, It sweeps. 

Like a Wind, when the tempests blow. 

A shadowy form — as a giant ghost — 
It stands in the midst of the armed host ! 
The dead man's shroud on Its awful limbs ; 

And the gloom of Its presence the daylight dims; ■ 

And the trembling world looks on aghast — ■' 

All hail to the Soul of the mighty Past ! 

Hail ! all hail ! 

As we speak — as we hallow — It moves, It breathes, 
From its clouded crest bud the laurel wreaths — 
As a Sun that leaps up from the arms of Night, 
The shadow takes shape, and the gloom takes light. 

Hail ! all hail ! 

The Soul of the Past, again, 

To its ancient home, 

In the hearts of Rome, 
Hath come to resume its reign ! 

O Fame, with a prophet's voice, 11 

Bid the ends of the earth rejoice 

Wherever the Proud are Strong, 

And Right is oppress'd by Wrong ; — 

Wherever the day dim shines 

Through the cell where the captive pines ; — 

Go forth, with a trumpet's sound ! 

And tell to the Nations round — 

On the Hills which the Heroes trod — 

In the shrines of the Saints of God — 

In the Caesars' hall, and the Martyrs' prison — 

That the slumber is broke, and the Sleeper arisen! 

That the reign of the Goth and the Vandal is o'er ; 

And Earth feels the tread of The Roman once more ! " 

Book II. Chap. 6. 

" Beauteous on the mountain — Lo, 

The feet of him glad tidings gladly bringing ; 
The flowers along his pathway grow, 

And voices, heard aloft, to angel harps are singing: 
And strife and slaughter cease 
Before thy blessed way. Young Messenger of Peace ! 

O'er the mount, and through the moor, 

Glide thy holy steps secure. 

Day and night no fear thou knowest, 

Lonely — but with God thou goest. 

Where the Heathen rage the fiercest. 

Through the armed throng thou piercest. 

For thy coat of mail, bedight 

In thy spotless robe of white. 

For the sinful sword — thy hand 

Rearing bright the silver wand. 

Through the camp and through the court, 

Through the bandit's gloomy fort, 



RIENZI. 195 

On the mission of the dove, 
Speeds the minister of love ; 
By a word the wildest taming, 
And the world to Christ reclaiming : 
While, as once the waters trod 
By the footsteps of thy God, 
War, and wrath, and rapine cease, 
Hush'd round thy charmed path, O Messenger of Peace ! " 

Book III. Chap. 2. 

love's excuse for sadness. 

" Chide not, beloved, if oft with thee, 

I feel not rapture wholly ; 
For aye the heart that's fill'd with love, 

Runs o'er in melancholy. 
To streams that glide in noon, the shade 

From summer skies is given ; 
So, if my breast reflects the cloud, 

'Tis but the cloud of heaven ! 
Thine image, glass'd within my soul, 

So well the mirror keepeth, 
That, chide me not, if with the light 

The shadow also sleepeth." 

Book III. Chap. 3. 

TRUE SENTIMENT. 

" No sound ever went to the heart," said Adrian, " whose ar- 
row was not feathered by sadness. True sentiment, is twin 
with melancholy, though not with gloom." — Book III. Chap. 3. 

GOD THE ONLY AGENT. 

" Fate ! " cried Rienzi ; " there is no fate ! Between the 
thought and the success, God is the only agent. — Book IV. 
Chap. 2. 

MEN BETRAY REAL CHARACTER IN INTOXICATION. 

" In intoxication," says the proverb, " men betray their real 
characters." There is a no less honest and truth-revealing in- 
toxication in prosperity than in wine. The varnish of power 
brings forth at once the defects and the beauties of the human 
portrait. — Book IV. Chap. 3. 

HEROIC BROTHERHOODS. 

Those heroic Brotherhoods, who, however vilified in modem 
judgment by the crimes of some unworthy members, were yet 
in the dark times, the best, the bravest, and the holiest agents 
to whom God ever delegated the power to resist the oppressor 
— to feed the hungry — to minister to woe ; and who, alone amidst 
that fiery pestilence (loosed, as it were, a demon from the abyss, 



196 WIT AXD WISDOM OF BULWER. 

to shiver into atoms all that binds the world to Virtue and to 
Law), seemed to awaken, as by the sound of an angel's trumpet, 
to that noblest chivalry of the Cross — whose faith is the scorn 
of self — whose hope is beyond the Lazar-house — whose feet, al- 
ready winged for immortality, trampled, with a conqueror's march, 
upon the graves of Death ! — Book VI. Chap. 4. 

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SHAKESPEARE AND OTHER MASTERS. 

There is this difference between the drama of Shakespeare, 
and that of almost every other master of the same art; that in 
the first, the catastrophe is rarely produced by one single cause 
— one simple and continuous chain of events. Various and 
complicated agencies work out the final end. Unfettered by the 
rules of time and place, each time, each place depicted, presents 
us with its appropriate change of action, or of actors. Sometimes 
the interest seems to halt, to turn aside, to bring us unawares 
upon objects hitherto unnoticed, or upon qualities of the charac- 
ters hitherto hinted at, not developed. But, in reality, the pause 
in the action is but to collect, to gather up, and to grasp, all the 
varieties of circumstances that conduce to the Great Result : and 
the art of fiction is only deserted for the fidelity of history. 
Whoever seeks to place before the world the true representation 
of a man's life and times, and, enlarging the Dramatic into the 
Epic, extends his narrative over the vicissitudes of years, will 
find himself, unconsciously, in this, the imitator of Shakespeare. 
—Book VII. Chap. I. 

NAMES THAT OUTLIVE THE GRAVE. 

Few, alas ! are they whose names may outlive the grave ; but 
the thoughts of every man who writes are made undying ; — others 
appropriate, advance, exalt them ; and millions of minds, un- 
known, undreamt of, are required to produce the immortality of 
one ! — Book VII. Chap. 7. 

WOMAN, HER WEAKNESS AND GREATNESS. 

Woman, my lord, alas ! your sex too rarely understand her 
weakness or her greatness ! Erring — all human as she is to oth- 
ers — God gifts her with a thousand virtues to the one she loves ! 
It is from that love that she alone drinks her nobler nature. 
For the hero of her worship she has the meekness of the dove — 
the devotion of the saint ; for his safety in peril, for his rescue 
in misfortune, her vain sense imbibes the sagacity of the serpent 
— her weak heart the courage of the lioness ! — Book VII. 
Chap. 9. 



RIENZT. 197 

E'^A OF PETRARCH. 

In that era of passionate and poetical romance, which Petrarch 
represented rather than created, Love had already begun to as- 
sume a more tender and sacred character than it had hitherto 
known ; it had gradually imbibjd the divine spirit which it de- 
rives from Christianity, and which associates its sorrows on earth 
with the visions and hopes of heaven. To him who relies upon 
immortality, fidelity to the dead is easy ; because death cannot 
extinguish hope, and the soul of the mourner is already half in 
the world to come. It is an age that desponds of a future life 
— representing death as an eternal separation — in which, if men 
grieve awhile for the dead, they hasten to reconcile themselves 
to the living. For true is the old aphorism, that love exists not 
without hope. — Book VIII. Chap. 3. 

LIFE A RIDDLE. 

*' Life itself a riddle, why should riddles amaze us ? The Fu- 
ture ! — what mystery in the very word ! Had we lived all through 
the Past, since Time was, our profoundest experience of a thou- 
sand ages could not give us a guess of the events that wait the 
very moment we are about to enter ! Thus deserted by Reason, 
what wonder that we recur to the Imagination, on which, by 
dream and symbol, God sometimes paints the likeness of things 
to come ? Who can endure to leave the Future all unguessed, 
and sit tamely down to groan under the fardel of the Present ? 
No, no : that which the foolish-wise call Fanaticism, belongs to 
the same part of us as Hope. Each but carries us onward — 
from a barren strand to a glorious, if unbounded sea. Each is 
the yearning for the Great Beyond, which attests our immortal- 
ity. Each has its visions and chimeras — some false, but some 
true ! Verily, a man who becomes great is often but made so 
by a kind of sorcery in his own soul — a Pythia which prophesies 
that he shall be great — and so renders the life one effort to ful- 
fil the warning ! Is this folly ? — it were so, if all things stopped 
* at the grave ! But perhaps the very sharpening, and exercising, 
and elevating the faculties here — though but for a bootless end 
on earth — may be designed to fit the soul, thus quickened and 
ennobled, to some high destiny beyond \h^ earth ! Who can tell ? 
not I ! Let us pray ! " — Rienzi to Nina : Book X. Chap. 8. 

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 

" They dare not — they dare not," said the brave Colonna, 
" touch a hair of that sacred head ! — If Rienzi fall, the liberties 
of Rome fall forever ! As those towers that surmount the 
flames, the pride and monument of Rome, he shall rise above 



198 WIT AND M^ISDOM OF BULWER. 

the dangers of the hour. Behold, still unscathed amidst the 
raging element, the Capitol itself is his emblem ! " 

Scarce had he spoken, when a vast volume of smoke obscured 
the fires afar off, a dull crash (deadened by the distance) trav- 
elled to his ear, and the next moment the towers on which he 
gazed had vanished from the scene, and one intense and sullen 
glare seemed to settle over the atmosphere, — making all Rome 
itself the funeral pyre of the Last of the Roman Tribunes ! 
---The End, 



PELHAM; 

OR, 

ADVENTURES OF A GENTLEMAN. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Mr. Pelham, younger son of one of the oldest earls, and a moderate \Yhig. 
Lady Frances, wife of the above. 

Henry Pelham, son of Lady Frances. wu r -i 

Reginald Glanville, son of a baronet of ancient and wealthy family. 
Ellen Glanville, sister of Reginald, beautiful in mmd as m person. 
Lady Glanville, mother of Reginald and Ellen. , . , . , ^ ^„j 

SiRLiONELGARRETT,ofancientfamily, /"Society their beings end and 

Lady Harriet, wife of Sir Lionel, ) aim. 

Lady Roseville, a widow, and the most fascinating woman of the day. 

Lord Vincent, a " promising voung man " all his life. 

Lord Gi.enmorris, uncle of Henry Pelham. 

Lord Guloseton, a facetious epicure. 

Lord Dawton, in political life. ,, r r i,- " .* ^ 

Mr Russelton, "the autocrat of the great world of fashion, etc. 

Sir Willoughby Townshend, an old baronet of antediluvian age. 

Christopher Clutterbuck, a bookworm. , , , _ ., 

Sir John TYRELL,only son of a younger branch ot the iyrells. 

Gordon, "j 

Jon SON, I Four villains. 

Thornton, 

Dawson, J 



EXTRACT FROM PREFACE. 

I have drawn for the hero of my Work, such a person as 
seemed to me best fitted to retail the opinions and customs _ of 
the class and age to which he belongs ; a personal combination 
of antitheses— a fop and a philosopher, a voluptuary and a moral- 
ist—a trifler in appearance, but rather one to whom trifles are 
instructive, than one to whom trifles are natural— an Aristippus 
on a limited scale, accustomed to draw sage conclusions from 
the follies he adopts, and while professing himself a votary of 
Pleasure, desirous in reality to become a disciple of Wisdom. 
Such a character I have found it more difficult to portray than 
conceive ; I have found it more difficult still, because I have 
with it nothing in common, except the taste for observation, 



200 WJT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

and some experience in the scenes among which it had been 
cast ; and it will readily be supposed that it is no easy matter to 
survey occurrences the most familiar through a vision, as it 
were, essentially and perpetually different from that through 
which oneself has been accustomed to view them. This diffi- 
culty in execution will perhaps be my excuse in failure ; and 
some additional indulgence may be reasonably granted to an 
author who has rarely found in the egotisms of his hero a vent 
for his own. 

ARTS NO SOUNDNESS. 

Tell arts they have no soundness, 

But vary by esteeming; 
Tell schools they want profoundness, 

And stand too much on seeming. 
If arts and schools reply. 
Give arts and schools the lie. 

Chap. 2. 

MANNERS THE CHIEF ATTRACTION. 

Her manners constituted her chief attraction : while they 
were utterly different from those of every one else, you could 
not, in the least minutiae, discover in what the difference con- 
sisted : this, is, in my opinion, the real test of perfect breeding. 
While you are enchanted with the effect, it should possess so 
little prominency and peculiarity, that you should never be able 
to guess the cause. — Chap. 3. 

FASHION IN MANNERS. 

Fashion with us is like the man in one of Le Sage's novels, 
who was constantly changing his servants, and yet had but one 
suit of livery, which every new comer, whether he was tall or 
short, fat or thin, was obliged to wear. We adopt manners, 
however incongruous and ill suited to our nature, and thus we 
always seem awkward and constrained. — Chap. 8. 

HARDSHIPS OF A SINGLE MAN. 

Oh ! the hardships of a single man are beyond conception ; 
and what is worse, the very misfortune of being single deprives 
one of all sympathy. " A single man can do this, and a single 
man ought to do that, and a single man may be put here, and 
a single man may be sent there," are maxims that I have been 
in the habit of hearing constantly inculcated and never disputed 
during my whole life ; and so, from our fare and treatment be- 
ing coarse in all matters, they have at last grown to be all mat- 
ters in course. — Chap, 8. 



PELHAM. 201 

OUR OWN CHARACTER. 

We know not our own characters till time teaches us' self- 
knowledge : if we are wise^ we may thank ourselves ; if we are 
g7-eat^ we must thank fortune. — Chap. 14. 

MANNERS RARE GIFT. 

What a rare gift, by the bye, is that of manners ! how difficult 
to define — how much more difficult to impart ! Better for a man 
to possess them, than wealth, beauty, or even talent, if it fall 
short of genius — they will more than supply all. He who en- 
joys their advantages in the highest degree : viz, he who can 
please, penetrate, persuade, as the object may require, possesses 
the subtlest secret of the diplomatist and the statesman, and 
wants nothing but luck and opportunity to become '"'• great. '^ 
— Chap. 14. 

COMMON SENSE ALL NECESSARY. 

Common sense is all that is necessary to distinguish what is 
good and evil, whether it be in life or in books : but then your 
education must not be that of public teaching and private fool- 
ing ; you must not counteract the effects of common sense by 
instilling prejudice, or encouraging weakness ; your education 
may not be carried to the utmost goal, but as far as it does go, 
you must see that the road is clear. Now, for instance, with 
regard to fiction, you must not first, as is done in all modern 
education, admit the disease, and then dose with warm water to 
expel it : you must not put fiction in your child's hands and not 
give him a single principle to guide his judgment respecting it, 
till his mind has got wedded to the poison, and too weak, by its 
long use, to digest the antidote. No : first fortify his intellect 
by reason, and you may then please his fancy by fiction. Do 
not excite his imagination with love and glory, till you can in- 
struct his judgment as to what love and glory are. Teach him, 
in short, to 7'eflect^ before you permit him full indulgence to iiJiag- 
ine. — Chap. 15. 

man's RELATION TO SOCIETY. 

Works which treat upon man in his relation to society, can 
only be strictly applicable so long as that relation to society 
treated upon continues. For instance, the play which satirizes 
a particular class, however deep its reflections and accurate its 
knowledge upon the subject satirized, must necessarily be obso- 
lete when the class itself has become so. The political pamph- 
let, admirable for one state, may be absurd in another; the 
novel which exactly delineates the present age may seem strange 



202 WIT AND WISDOM OF BUL WER. 

and unfamiliar to the next ; and thus works which treat of men 
relatively, and not man in se, must often confine their popularity 
to the age and even the country in which they were written. 
While on the other hand, the work which treats of man himself, 
which seizes, discovers, analyzes the human mind, as it is, 
whether in the ancient or the modern, the savage or the Euro- 
pean, must evidently be applicable, and consequently useful, to 
all times and all nations. — Chap. i6. 

BENEVOLENCE INSEPARABLE FROM MORALITY. 

Ah, Monsieur d'A , since benevolence is inseparable from 

all morality, it must be clear that there is a benevolence in little 
things as well as in great, and that he who strives to make his 
fellow-creatures happy, though only for an instant, is a much 
better man than he who is indifferent to, or (what is worse) de- 
spises it. — Chap. 15. 

BURNING INCENSE BEFORE THE NEEDLE. 

"Ah ! " said Vincent, " I should think he went to the best 
tailor, and said, ' Give me a collar like Lord So and So's ' ; one 
who would not dare to have a new waistcoat till it had been 
authoritatively patronized, and who took his fashions, like his 
foUicF, from the best proficients. Such fellows are always too 
ashamed of themselves not to be proud of their clothes ; — like 
the Chinese mariners, they burn incense before the needle /^^ 
— Chap. 20. 

TO BE PLEASED WITH ONE's SELF. 

Why is it, by-the-by, that to be pleased with one's self is the 
surest way of offending everybody else ? If any one, male or 
female, an evident admirer of his or her own perfections, enter 
a room, how perturbed, restless, and unhappy every individual 
of the offender's sex instantly becomes : for them not only enjoy- 
ment but tranquillity is over, and if they could annihilate the 
unconscious victim of their spleen, I fully believe no Christian 
toleration would come in the way of that last extreme of ani- 
mosity. For a coxcomb there is no mercy — for a coquette no 
pardon. They are, as it were, the Dissenters of society — no 
crime is too bad to be imputed to them ; they do not believe 
the religion of others — they set up a deity of their own vanity — 
all the orthodox vanities of others are offended. Then comes 
the bigotry — the stake — the auto-da-fe of scandal. What, alas ! 
is so implacable as the rage of vanity? What so restless as its 
persecution ? Take from a man his fortune, his house, his repu- 
tation, but flatter his vanity in each, and he will forgive you. 



PELHAM. 203 

Heap upon him benefits, fill him with blessings : but irritate 
his self-love, and you have made the very best man ungrateful. 
He will sting you if he can : you cannot blame him ; you your- 
self have instilled the venom. This is one reason why you 
must rarely reckon upon gratitude in conferring an obligation. 
It is a very high mind to which gratitude is not a painful sensa- 
tion. If you wash to please, you will find it wiser to receive 
— solicit even — favors, than accord them : for the vanity of the 
obliger is always flattered — that of the obligee rarely. — Chap, 23. 

THE HIGHER THE RANK, THE LESS PRETENCE. 

The higher the rank, indeed, the less pretence, because there 
is less to pretend to. This is the chief reason why our manners 
are better than low persons : ours are more natural, because 
they imitate no one else ; theirs are affected, because they 
think to imitate ours ; and whatever is evidently borrowed be- 
comes vulgar. Original affectation is sometimes good ton^ — 
imitated affectation, always bad. — Chap. 26. 

POLITICAL SCIENCE. 

Make but this distinction : that whereas, in political science, 
the rules you have learned may be fixed and unerring, yet the 
application of them must vary with time and circumstance. We 
must bend, temporize, and frequently withdraw, doctrines which, 
invariable in their truth, the prejudices of the time will not in- 
variably allow, and even relinquish a faint hope of obtaining a 
great good, for the certainty of obtaining a lesser ; yet in the 
science of private morals, which relate for the main part to our- 
selves individually, we have no right to deviate one single iota 
from the rule of our conduct. Neither time nor circumstance 
must cause us to modify or to change. Integrity knows no 
variation ; honesty no shadow of turning. We must pursue the 
same course — stern and uncompromising — in the full persuasion 
that the path of right is like the bridge from earth to heaven, in 
the Mahometan creed ; — if we swerve but a single hair's breadth, 
we are irrevocably lost. — Chap. ^i^. 

DESIGN, NOT EXECUTION. 

It is the design, not the executio7i, of all great undertakings 
which requires deliberation and delay. Action cannot be too 
prompt. — Chap. 39. 

TWO CODES OF MORALITY IN DRESS. 

Dress contains the two codes of morality — private and public. 
Attention is the duty we owe to others — cleanliness that which 



204 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

we owe to ourselves. Dress so that it may never be said of 
you " What a well-dressed man ! " — but, " What a gentlemanly- 
like man ! " — Chap. 39. 

NOTHING SUPERFICIAL TO THE DEEP OBSERVER. 

Nothing is superficial to a deep observer ! It is in trifles 
that the mind betrays itself. " In what part of that letter," 
said a king to the wisest of living diplomatists, "did you dis- 
cover irresolution ? " — " In its n's and ^s ."' was the answer. — 
Chap. 40. 

INVENTIONS IN DRESSING. 

Inventions in dressing should resemble Addison's definition 
of fine writing, and consist of " refinements which are natural, 
without being obvious." — Chap. 40. 

ESTEEM FOR TRIFLES. 

He who esteems trifles for themselves, is a trifler — he who 
esteems them for the conclusions to be drawn from them, or the 
advantage to which they can be put, is a philosopher. — Chap. 
44. 

AIM OF EVERY GOOD NOVEL. 

Every good novel has one great end — the same in all— w>. 
the increasing our knowledge of the heart. It is thus that a 
novel-writer must be a philosopher. Whoever succeeds in show- 
ing us more accurately the nature of ourselves and species, has 
done science, and, consequently, virtue, the most important 
benefit ; for every truth is a moral. — Chap. 52. 

REQUIREMENTS FOR A GOOD WRITER. 

It is not enough for a writer to have a good heart, amiable 
sympathies, and what are termed high feelings, in order to 
shape out a moral, either true in itself, or beneficial in its incul- 
cation. Before he touches his tale, he should be thoroughly 
acquainted with the intricate science of morals, and the meta- 
physical, as well as the more open, operations of the mind. If 
his knowledge is not deep and clear, his love of the good may 
only lead him into error ; and he may pass off the prejudices of 
a susceptible heart for the precepts of virtue. Would to Heaven 
that people would think it necessary to be instructed before 
they attempt to instruct 1 " Dire simplement que la vertu est verttc 
parce qu'elle est bonne en son fonds, et le vice tout au contraire, ce 
n'est pas lesfaire connoitre.'^ For me, if I were to write a novel, 
I would first make myself an acute, active, and vigilant observer 



1 



PELHAM. 205 

of men and manners. Secondly, I would, after having thus 
noted effects by action in the world, trace the causes by books, 
and meditation in my closet. It is then, and not till then, that 
I would study the lighter graces of style and decoration ; nor 
would I give ''the rein to invention, till I was convinced that it 
would create neither monsters of men, nor falsities of truth. — 
Chap. 52. 

GREAT PHILOSOPHERS TO EACH OTHER. 

" Alas ! my dear friend," said Glanville— " we are great phi- 
losophers to each other, but not to ourselves; the moment we 
begin to feel sorrow, we cease to reflect on its wisdom. Time 
is the only comforter ; your maxims are very true, but they con- 
firm me in my opinion — that it is in vain for us to lay down 
fixed precepts for the regulation of the mind so long as it is 
dependent upon the body. Happiness and its reverse are con- 
stitutional in many persons, and it is then only that they are 
independent of circumstances. Make the health, the frames of 
all men, alike— make their nerves of the same susceptibility— 
their memories of the same bluntness, or acuteness — and I will 
then allow that you can give rules adapted to all men ; till then, 
your maxim, ' never to regret,' is as idle as Horace's ' never to 
admire.' It may be wise to you — it is impossible to me ! " — 
Chap. 54. 

EYES DIM TO ESTIMATE KIN. 

Who kno\Cs not the truth, that we have dim and short-sighted 
eyes to estimate the nature of our own kin, and that we borrow 
the spectacles which alone enable us to discern their merits or 
their failings from the opinion of strangers! — Chap. 63 

RULE FOR DELINEATING THE BEAU MONDE. 

"There is only one rule necessary for a clever writer who 
wishes to delineate the beau monde. It is this : let him consider 
that ' dukes, and lords, and noble princes,' eat, drink, talk, 
move, exactly the same as any other class of civilized people- 
nay, the very subjects in conversation are, for the most part, 
the 'same in all sets — only, perhaps, they are somewhat more 
familiarly and easily treated with us than among the lower 
orders, who fancy rank is distinguished by pomposity, and that 
state affairs are discussed with the solemnity of a tragedy— that 
we are always my lording and my ladying each other — that we 
ridicule commoners, and curl our hair with Debrett's Peerage." 
— Chap. 67. 



206 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER 

THE NOBLEST OF PASSIONS THE MOST SELFISH. 

Ah ! why is it, that the noblest of our passions should be 
also the most selfish ? — that while we would make all earthly 
sacrifi(ie for the one we love, we are perpetually demanding a 
sacrifice in return ; that if we cannot have the rapture of bless- 
ing we find a consolation in the power to afilict ; and that we 
acknowledge, while we reprobate, the maxim of the sage : 
" L'ofi leutfaire tout le bo7iheur^ ou, si cella ne sepeut ainsi, tout le 
malheur de ce qu'on ainie.^'' — Chap. 68. 

REASON WHY WE DISLIKE VANITY. 

" The reason we dislike vanity in others, is because it is per- 
petually hurting bur own. Of all passions (if for the moment I 
may call it such) it is the most indiscreet ; it is forever blabbing 
out its own secrets. If it would but keep its counsel, it would 
be as graciously received in society, as any other well-dressed 
and well-bred intruder of quality. Its garrulity makes it 
despised. But in truth it must be clear, that vanity in itself is 
neither a vice nor a virtue, any more than this knife, in itself, is 
dangerous or useful ; the person who employs gives it its 
qualities : thus, for instance, a great mind desires to shine, 
or is vain., in great actions ; a frivolous one, in frivolities ; and 
so on through the varieties of the human intellect. 

Never consider that vanity an offence which limits itself 
to wishing for the praise of good men for good actions ; ' next 
to our own esteem,' says the best of the Roman philosophers, 
* it is a virtue to desire the esteem of others.' " — Chap. 68. 

THE CROWD KNOWS LITTLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 

" How little," said Lady Roseville, " can the crowd know of 
the individuals who compose it ! As the most opposite colors 
may be blended into one, and so lose their individual hues, and 
be classed under a single name, so every one here will go home, 
and speak of the ^ gay scene,^ without thinking for a moment, 
how many breaking hearts may have composed it." 

" I have often thought," said I, " how harsh we are in our 
judgments of others — how often we accuse those persons of 
being worldly, who merely seem so to the world." — Chap. 71. 

THE REAL POWER OF MINISTERS. 

It is by the bed of sickness or remorse, that the ministers of 
God have their real power ! it is here that their of^ce is indeed 
a divine and unearthly mission ; and that, in breathing balm 
and comfort, in healing the broken heart, in raising the crushed 
and degraded spirit, they are the voice and oracle of the 



PELHAM. 2°7 

Father, who made us in benevolence, and will judge us in 
mercy ! — Chap. 83. 

PORTRAYAL OF SOCIETY. 

Whatever society— whether in a higher or lower grade— I 
v,,!! nortraved my sketches have been taken rather as a 
wttness than a cowlt ; for I have never shunned that crcle, 
nor that individual which presented life m a fresh view, or man 
"n a new relation. It is right, however that I should add that 
as I haTe not wished to be an individual satirist ra her than a 
teneal observer, I have occasionally, in the subordinate char- 
fc ers such Is Russelton and Gordon),- taken only the outline 
f ,om trutt and filled up the colors at my leisure and will. 

With re-ard to myself I have been more candid. I have not 
only shown-l« pica manu-my faults, but (grant this is a 
much ra^er exposure) my >W..; and,, in my anxiety for your 
^tertinment,'! hav/noi grudged you the if --^ °f ^^ '^^^"f ^^ 
-even at my own expense. Forgive me, then, if I am not a 
fashTonable hlro-forgive me if I have not we,.t over -"If^^^ 
stirit" nor boasted of a " British heart; and allow that a man 
fho inAese days of alternate Werters and Worthies, is neither 
the one norihe other, is, at least, a novelty in print, though, I 
fpar common enough in life. , , , u 

And now, my kiifd reader, having remembered the proverb 
and"n saviiW one word to thee having said two for myself, I 
wUl no longer detain thee. Whatever thou mayest think of me 
Tnd my thousand faults, both as an author and a man, believe 
me iTs wkh a sincere ^nd affectionate wish for the accomphsh- 
men of my parting words, that I bid thee->.^'.///-r^^ End. 



LUCRETIA; 

OR, 

THE CHILDREN OF NIGHT. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Sir Miles St. John, " once a gay and sparkling beau, now a popular 

country gentleman." 
Charles Vernon, " the London man of clubs and dinners." He suc- 
ceeds to the name and estates of St. John. 
Oliver Dalibard, a man of considerable learning and rare scientific 

attainments, but bold and unscrupulous. The first husband of Lucretia. 
Lucretia Clavering, niece of Miles St. John, and wife of Dalibard, 

(second husband, Alfred Braddell.) 
Gabriel Varney, in reality the son of Oliver Dalibard. 
William Mainwaring, of a mercantile profession. 
Susan Hivers, half-sister to Lucretia and wife of William Mainwaring. 
Helen Mainwaring, daughter of William and Susan and wife of Percival 

St. John. 
John Walter Ardworth, Sr. 

John Ardworth, son of the above, a talented lawyer and writer. 
Mr. Fielden, a good clergyman. 
Mr. Parch mount, a lawyer. 
Tom Varney, an artist uncle of Gabriel. 
Lady Mary, wife of Charles Vernon St. John. 
Percival St. John, only surviving son of Charles Vernon St. John and 

Lady Mary. 
Captain Greville, tutor and friend of Percival St. John. 
Alfred Braddell, a trader at Liverpool, and the second husband of 

Lucretia. 
Beck, a street sweeper, who is discovered to be the son of Alfred Braddell 

and Lucretia. 
Jean Bellanger, the rich kinsman of Oliver Dalibard. 
Nicholas Grabman, a dishonest attorney-at-law. 
Pierre Guillot, the Chouan. 



Lucretia, or the Children of Night, was begun simul- 
taneously with the The Caxtons, a Family Picture. The 
two fictions were intended as peiidants ; both serving, among 
other collateral aims and objects, to show the influence of home 
education — of early circumstance and example — upon after 
character and conduct. Lucretia was completed and pub- 
lished before The Caxtons. The moral design of the first was 
misunderstood and assailed ; that of the last was generally ac- 
knowledged and approved ; the moral design in both was never- 



LUCRETIA. zo^ 

theless precisely the same. But in one it was sought through the 
darker sides of human nature ; in the other, through the more 
sunny and cheerful — one shows the evil, the other the salutary 
influences of early circumstance and training. Necessarily there- 
fore the first resorts to the tragic elements of awe and distress 
— the second to the comic elements of humor and agreeable 
emotion. These differences serve to explain the different re- 
ception that awaited the two, and may teach us how little the 
real conception of an author is known, and how little it is 
cared for : we judge — not by the purpose he conceives, but ac- 
cording as the impressions he effects are pleasurable or pain- 
ful. — Ex, from Preface to edition ofi8^^. 

RUIN OF HUMANITY. 

This was a ruin nobler than that which painters place on their 
canvas — the ruin, not of stone and brick, but of humanity and 
spirit ; the wreck of man, prematurely old, not stricken by great 
sorrow, not bowed by great toil, but fretted and mined away by 
small pleasures and poor excitements — small and poor, but 
daily, hourly, momently at their gnome-like work. — jPart /. 
Chap. I . 

C^ILD MIXING WITH ADULTS. 

It has a great influence upon a child, whether for good or for 
evil, to mix early and habitually with those grown up — for good 
to the mere intellect always — the evil depends upon the charac- 
ter and discretion of those the child sees and hears. — Part I. 
Chap. 2. 

HOUSEHOLD GODS. 

To noble and aspiring spirits, no homily to truth, and honor, 
and fair ambition is more eloquent, than the mute and melan- 
choly canvas, from which our fathers, made by death our house- 
hold gods, contemplate us still. They appear to confide to us 
the charge of their unblemished names. They speak to us 
from the grave, and heard aright, the pride of family is the 
guardian angel of its heirs. — Part I. Chap. 3. 

FIDELITY OF DOGS. 

Now, people praise the fidelity of dogs till the theme is worn 
out, but nobody knows what a dog is, unless he has been de- 
ceived by men ; then, that honest face, then, that sincere caress ; 
then that coaxing whine that never lied ! Well, the7i — what 
then ? A dog is long lived if he lives to ten years — small 
career this to truth and friendship. — Part P Chap. 5. 



210 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

GIVING AWAY TO DOUBT. 

If one of those who glance over these pages chance to be a 
person more than usually able and acute — a person who has loved 
and been deceived — he or she, no matter which, will perhaps 
recall those first moments when the doubt, long put off, insisted 
to be heard ; a weak and foolish heart gives way to the doubt 
at once, not so the subtler and more powerful ; it rather, on the 
contrary, recalls all the little circumstances that justify trust 
and make head against suspicion ; it will not render the citadel 
at the mere sound of the trumpet ; it arms all its forces, and 
bars its gates on the foe. Hence it is, that the persons most 
easy to dupe in matters of affection are usually those most astute 
in the larger affairs of life. — Part I. Chap. 7. 

CERTAIN STAGES OF GRIEF. 

In certain stages of great grief our natures yearn for excite- 
ment. This has made some men gamblers ; it has made even 
women drunkards — it had effect over the serene calm and 
would-be divinity of the Poet-sage. When his son dies, Goethe 
does not mourn — he plunges into the absorption of a study un- 
cultivated before. But, in the great contest of life, in the 
whirlpool of actual affairs, the stricken heart finds all — the gamb- 
ling, the inebriation, and the study. — Part I. Chap. 9. 

THE BIRD THE TRUE ARTIST. 

The bird was the only true artist there : it sang, as the poet 
sings, to obey its nature and vent its heart. — Part I. Chap, 10. 

LIVES OF GREAT CRIMINALS. 

It is a striking attribute of men once thoroughly tainted by 
the indulgence of vicious schemes and stratagems, that they be- 
come wholly blinded to those plain paths of ambition which 
common sense makes manifest to ordinary ability. If we re- 
gard narrowly the lives of great criminals, we are often very 
much startled by the extraordinary acuteness — the profound 
calculation — the patient meditative energy which they have em- 
ployed upon the conception and execution of a crime. We feel 
inclined to think that such intellectual power would have com- 
manded great distinction, worthily used and guided ; but we 
never find that these great criminals seem to have been sensible 
of the opportunities to real eminence which they have thrown 
away. Often we observe that there have been before them 
vistas into worldly greatness, which, by no uncommon prudence 
and exertion, would have conducted honest men, half as clever, 
to fame and power ; but, with a strange obliquity of vision, they 



LUCRETIA. 211 

appear to have looked from these broad clear avenues into 
some dark, angled defile, in which, by the subtlest ingenuity, 
and through the most besetting perils, they might attain at last 
the success of a fraud, or the enjoyment of a vice. In crime 
once indulged, there is a wonderful fascination — and the fasci- 
nation is, not rarely, great in proportion to the intellect of the 
criminal. There is always hope of reform for a dull, unedu- 
cated, stolid man, led by accident or temptation into guilt ; but 
where a man of great ability,' and highly educated, besots him- 
self in the intoxication of dark and terrible excitements, takes 
impure delight in tortuous and slimy ways, the good angel 
abandons him forever. — Epilogue to Part I. 

THE SPIRIT THAT SERVES THE WIZARD. 

In the old Scottish legend, the spirit that serves the wizard 
must be kept constantly employed ; suspend its work for a 
moment, and it fends the enchanter. It is so with minds that 
crave for excitement, and live, without relief of heart and affec- 
tion, on the hard tasks of the intellect. — Epilogue to Part I. 

DIVISIONS OF THE SEASONS. 

Time has passed on, and Spring is over the world ; the seeds, 
buried in the earth, burst to flower ; but man's breast knoweth 
not the sweet division of the seasons. In winter or summer, 
autumn or spring alike, his thoughts sow the germs of his 
actions, and day after day his destiny gathers in her harvests. — 
Epilogue to Part I. 

DEATH AND CRIME. 

Take a sand from the shore, take a drop from the ocean less 
than sand-grain, and drop in man's planet one Death and one 
Crime ! On the map, trace all oceans, and search out every 
shore, — more than seas, more than lands, in God's balance shall 
weigh one Death and one Crime ! — Epilogue to Part /. 

MINDS POETICAL, SUSCEPTIBLE. 

All minds genuinely poetical, are peculiarly susceptible to 
movement — that is, to the excitement of numbers. If the move- 
ment is sincerely joyous, as in the mirth of a village holiday, 
such a nature shares insensibly in the joy. But if the move- 
ment is a false and spurious gayety, as in a state ball, where 
the impassive face and languid step are out of harmony with 
the evident object of the scene— then the nature we speak of 
feels chilled and dejected. Hence it really is, that the more 
delicate and ideal order of minds soon grow inexpressibly 



212 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

weary of the hack routine of what are called fashionable pleas- 
ures. Hence the same person most alive to a dance on the 
green, would be without enjoyment at Almack's. It is not be- 
cause one scene is a village green, and the other a room in King 
Street ; nor is it because the actors in the one are of the humble, 
in the other of the noble class, but simply because the enjoy- 
ment in the first is visible and hearty, because in the other it 
is a listless and melancholy pretence. — Prologue to Fart II. 

TWO WINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

When the poetical nature quits its own dreams for the act- 
ual world, it enters and transfuses itself into the hearts and 
humors of others. The two wings of that spirit which we call 
Genius are reverie and sympathy. — Prologue to Part II. 

ONE ALWAYS TRUE. 

One who is always true in the great duties of life is nearly 
always wise. — Part II. Chap. 5. 

THE POET NEEDS MANY GIFTS. 

To the poet, practically developed and made manifest to the 
world many other gifts, besides the mere poetic sense, are 
needed ; stern study and logical generalization of scattered 
truths, and patient observation of the characters of men, and the 
wisdom that comes from sorrow and passion, and a sage's ex- 
perience of things actual, embracing the daik secrets of human 
infirmity and crime. But, despite all that has been said in dis- 
paragement or disbelief of " mute inglorious Miltons," we main- 
tain that there are natures in which the divinest element of 
poetry exists, the purer and more delicate for escaping bodily 
from form, and evaporating from the coarser vessels into which 
the poet, so called, must pour the ethereal fluid. There is a 
certain virtue within us, comprehending our subtlest and noblest 
emotions, which is poetry while untold, and grows pale and 
poor in proportion as we strain it it into poems. Nay, it may 
be said of this airy property of our inmost being, that more or 
less, it departs from us, according as we give it forth into the 
world, even, as only by the loss of its particles, the rose wastes 
its perfume on the air. — Part II. Chap. 8. 

USE OF GENIUS. 

Now, genius is given to man, not only to enlighten others, 
but to comfort as well as to elevate himself. Thus, in all the 
sorrows of actual existence, the man is doubly inclined to turn 
to his genius for distraction. Harassed in this world of action, 



LUC RE TI A. 213 

he knocks at the gate of that world of idea or fancy which he is 
privileged to enter ; he escapes from the clay to the spirit. 
And rarely, till some great grief comes, does the man in whom 
the celestial fire is lodged know all the gift of which he is pos- 
sessed. — Part II. Chap. 9. 

POETRY OF GENEROUS DEEDS. 

A nobler poetry than we chain to rhythm — the poetry of gen- 
erous deeds. — Part II. Chap. 11. 

TILL OUR DESTINIES ARE FULFILLED. 

" We live till our destinies below are fulfilled ; till our uses 
have passed from us in this sphere, and rise to benefit another. 
For the soul is as a sun, but with this noble distinction, the sun 
is confined in its career — day after day it visits the same plan- 
ets, or rather, as the astronomers hold, stands the motion-centre 
of moving worlds. But the soul, when it sinks into seeming 
darkness and the deep, rises to new destinies, fresh regions un- 
visited before. What we call Eternity, may be but an endless 
series of transitions which men call deaths^ abandonments of 
home, ever to fairer scenes and loftier heights. Age after age, 
the spirit, that glorious Nomad, may shift its tent, fated not to 
rest in the dull Elysium of the Heathen, but carrying with it 
evermore its elements, — Activity and Desire. Why should the 
soul ever repose ? God, its Principal, reposes never. While we 
speak, new worlds are sparkling forth — -suns are throwing off 
their nebulae — nebulae are hardening into worlds. The Al- 
mighty proves his existence by creating. Think you that Plato 
is at rest, and Shakespeare only basking on a sun-cloud ? Labor 
is the very essence of spirit as of divinity : labor is the purga- 
tory of the erring ; it may become the hell of the wicked, but 
labor is not less the heaven of the good ! " 

Ardworth spoke with unusual earnestness and passion ; and 
his idea of the future was emblematic of his own active nature : 
for each of us is wisely left to shape out, amid the impenetrable 
mists, his own ideal of the Hereafter. The warrior child of the 
biting North placed his Hela amid snows, and his Himmel in 
the banquets of victorious war ; the son of the East, parched by 
relentless summer — this hell amid fire, and his Elysium by cool- 
mg streams ; the weary peasant sighs through life for rest, and 
rest awaits his vision beyond the grave ; the workman of genius 
— ever ardent, ever young — honors toil as the glorious develop- 
ment of being — and springs refreshed over the abyss of the 
grave — to follow, from star to star, the progress that seems to 
him at once the supreme felicity and the necessary law. So be 



214 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

it with the fantasy of each ! Wisdom that is infalhble, and love 
that never sleeps, watch over the darkness — and bid darkness 
be, that we may dream ! — Part II. Chap. 12. 

POWER TO DO GOOD. 

There lives not a man on earth — out of a lunatic asylum — 
who has not in him the power to do good. — Part II. Chap. 12. 

THROWING A STONE INTO THE WATER. 

Any child who throws a stone into the water with all his force 
can make a splash ; but he would be a fool indeed if he sup- 
posed that the splash was a sign that he had turned a stream. — 
Part II. Chap. 12. 

RANGE OF ART. 

Range, O Art, through all space, clasp together all extremes, 
shake idle wealth from its lethargy, and bid States look in hov- 
els, where the teacher is dumb, and Reason unweeded runs to 
rot ! Bid haughty Intellect pause in its triumph, and doubt if 
intellect alone can deliver the soul from its tempters ! — only 
that lives uncorrupt, which preserves in all seasons the human 
affections in which the breath of God breathes, and is ! Go 
forth to the world, O Art ! — go forth to the innocent, the guilty ; 
— the wise, and the dull ! — go forth as the still voice of Fate ! — 
speak of the insecurity even of Goodness below ! — carry on the 
rapt vision of suffering Virtue through " the doors of the shad- 
ows of death ! " — show the dim revelation symbolled forth in 
the Tragedy of old ! — how incomplete is man's destiny, how un- 
developed is the justice divine, if Antigone sleep eternally in 
the ribs of the rock, and QEdipus vanish forever in the Grove of 
the Furies! Here, below, "the waters are hid with a stone, 
and the face of the deep is frozen ! " But above liveth He 
" who can bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, and loose 
the bands of Orion." Go with Fate over the bridge, and she 
vanishes in the land beyond the gulf! Behold where the eter- 
nal demands Eternity for the progress of His creatures and the 
vindication of His justice ! — Part II. Chap. 17. 

TWO WINGS RAISE TO SUMMIT OF TRUTH. 

Vainly, for its moral, dost thou gaze on the landscape, if thy 
soul puts no check on the dull delight of the senses. Two 
wings only raise thee to the summit of Truth — where the 
Cherub shall comfort the sorrow, where the Seraph shall en- 
lighten the joy. Dark as ebon spreads the one wing, white as 
snow gleams the other — mournful as thy reason when it descends 



LUCRE TIA. 215 

into the deep — exulting as thy faith when it springs to the day- 
star. — Epilogue to Fart II. 

FOR HIM WHO ASPIRES. 

For him who aspires, and for him who loves, life may lead 
through the thorns, but it never stops in the desert. — Epilogice 
• to Part II. 

PATIENCE NECESSARY. 

No Deity presides where Prudence is absent. Man a world 
in himself, requires, for the development of his faculties, pa- 
tience ; and for the balance of his actions, order. — Epilogue to 
Part II. 

GUARD PORTAL OF SIN — THE THOUGHT. 

Guard well, O Heir of Eternity, the portal of sin — the thought ! 
From the thought to the deed, the subtler thy brain, and the 
bolder thy courage, the briefer and straighter is the way. Read 
these pages in disdain of self-commune — they shall revolt thee, 
not instruct ; read them, looking steadfastly within, and how 
humble soever the art of the narrator, the facts he narrates, like 
all history, shall teach by example. Every human Act, good or 
ill, is an Angel to guide or to warn ; and the deeds of the 
worst have messages from Heaven to the listening hearts of the 
best. Amid the glens in the Apennine, — in the lone wastes of 
Calabria, the sign of the Cross marks the spot where a deed of 
violence has been done ; on all that pass by the road, the sym- 
bol has varying effect ; sometimes it startles the conscience, 
sometimes it invokes the devotion ; the robber drops the blade, 
the priest counts the rosary. So is it with the record of the 
crime : and in the witness of Guilt, Man is thrilled with the 
whisper of Religion. — The End. 



THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Glaucus, the hero, an Athenian, the subject of Rome. 

lONE, the good and beautiful heroine. 

Nydia, the blind flower girl, also a heroine. 

Ap^cides, brother to lone. At the beginning of the story a priest of Isis. 

DiOMED, the wealthy. 

Julia, the daughter of Diomed. 

Arbaces, an Egyptian magician, the guardian of Apaecides and lone. 

Pansa, the aedile. 

Sallust, friend of Glaucus, devoted to pleasure. 

Calenus, a priest. 

Olinthus, a Nazarene. 

FuLVius, the Roman poet. 

Lydon, "I 

^^^^^L Gladiators. 
Sporus, [ 

BURBO, J 

Medon, a Christian slave, father of Lydon. 



The city, whose fate supplied me with so superb and awful a 
catastrophe, supplied easily, from the first survey of its remains, 
the characters most suited to the subject and the scene : the 
half-Grecian colony of Hercules, mingling with the manners of 
Italy so much of the costumes of Hellas, suggested of itself the 
characters of Glaucus and lone. The worship of Isis, its exist- 
ent fane, with its false oracles unveiled — the trade of Pompeii 
with Alexandria — the associations of the Sarnus with the Nile, 
— called forth the Egyptian Arbaces, the base Calenus, and the 
fervent Apaecides. The early struggles of Christianity with the 
heathen superstition suggested the creation of Olinthus : and 
the burnt fields of Campania, long celebrated for the spells of 
the sorceress, naturally produced the Saga of Vesuvius. For 
the existence of the Blind Girl, I am indebted to a casual con- 
versation with a gentleman, well known amongst the English at 
Naples for his general knowledge of the many paths of life. 
Speaking of the utter darkness which accompanied the first re- 
corded eruption of Vesuvius, and the additional obstacle it pre- 
sented to the escape of the inhabitants, he observed that the 
blind would be the most favored in such a moment, and find the 



THE LAST DA YS OF POMPEII. 217 

easiest deliverance. In this remark originated the creation of 
Nydia. The characters, therefore, are the natural offspring of 
the scene and time. The incidents of the tale are equally conso- 
nant, perhaps, to the then existing society ; for it is not only the 
ordinary habits of life, the feasts and the forum, the baths and 
the amphitheatre, the commonplace routine of the classic luxury, 
which we recall the past to behold ; — equally important, and 
more deeply interesting, are the passions, the crimes, the misfort- 
unes, and reverses that might have chanced to the shades we 
thus summon to life ! We understand any epoch of the world 
but ill if we do not examine its romance. There is as much 
truth in the poetry of life as in its prose. — Ex.ft'om Preface. 

HE WHO HAS LOVED OFTEN. 

"He who has loved often," answered Glaucus, "has loved 
never. There is but one Eros, though there are many counter- 
feits of him." — Book I. Chap. 2. 

NOTHING so CONTAGIOUS AS ENTHUSIASM. 

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm ; it is the real allegory 
of the tale of Orpheus — it moves stones, it charms brutes. En- 
thusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no 
victories without it. — Book I. Chap. 3. 

WATCH AND PRAY. 

Watch and pray, — the darkness shall vanish, the storm sleep, 
and God himself, as He came of yore on the seas of Samaria, 
shall walk over the lulled billows, to the delivery of your soul. 
Ours is a religion jealous in its demands, but how infinitely 
prodigal in its gifts ! It troubles you for an hour, it repays you 
by immortality. — Book I. Chap. 5. 

THE HYMN OF EROS. 

" By the cool banks where soft Cephisus flows, 
A voice sail'd trembling down the waves of air ; 
The leaves blushed brighter in the Teian's rose, 
The doves couch'd breathless in their summer lair ; 

While from their hands the purple flowerets fell, 
The laughing Hours stood listening in the sky ; — 

From Pan's green cave to Ogle's haunted cell. 
Heaved the charm'd earth in one delicious sigh. 

* Love, sons of earth ! I am the Power of Love I 

Eldest of all the gods, with Chaos born ; 
My smile sheds light along the courts above, 

My kisses wake the eyelids of the Morn. 



2i8 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Mine are the stars — there, ever as ye gaze, 

Ye meet the deep spell of my haunting eyes ; 
Mine is the moon — and, mournful if her rays, 

'Tis that she lingers where her Carian lies. 

The flowers are mine — the blushes of the rose. 

The violet-charming Zephyr to the shade ; 
Mine the quick light that in the Maybeam glows, 

And mine the day-dream in the lonely glade. 

Love, sons of earth — for love is earth's soft lore, 
Look where ye will — earth overflows wath me ; 

Learn from the waves that ever kiss the shore, 
And the winds nestling on the heaving sea. 

All teaches love ! ' — The sweet voice, like a dream, 

Melted in light ; yet still the airs above. 
The waving sedges, and the whispering stream. 

And the green forest rustling, murmur'd ' Love ! ' " 

Chap. 8. 

SOUL ENAMORED OF SOUL. 

There is a love, beautiful Greek, which is not the love only of 
the thoughtless and the young — there is a love which sees not 
with the eyes, which hears not with the ears ; but in which soul 
is enamored of soul. The countryman of thy ancestors, the 
cave-nursed Plato, dreamed of such a love — his followers have 
sought to imitate it ; but it is a love that is not for the herd to 
echo — it is a love that only high and noble natures can con- 
ceive — it hath nothing in common with the sympathies and ties 
of coarse affection ; — wrinkles do not revolt it — homeliness of 
feature does not deter : it asks youth, it is true, but it asks it 
only in the freshness of the emotions ; it asks beauty, it is true, 
but it is the beauty of the thought and of the spirit. — Book II. 
Chap. 4. 

PEACE. 

" Peace be with thee ! " 

" Peace ! " echoed the priest, in so hollow a tone that it went 
at once to the heart of the Nazarene. 

" In that wish," continued Olinthus, " all good things are 
combined — without virtue thou canst not have peace. Like the 
rainbow, Peace rests upon the earth, but its arch is lost in 
heaven ! Heaven bathes it in hues of light — it springs up 
amidst tears and clouds, — it is a reflection of the Eternal Sun, 
■ — it is an assurance of calm — it is the sign of a great covenant 
between Man and God. Such peace, O young man ! is the 
smile of the soul ; it is an emanation from the distant orb of im- 
mortal light. Peace be with you ! " — Book III. Chap. i. 



THE LAST DA YS OF POMPEII, 219 

nydia's love-song. 

" The Wind and the Beam loved the Rose, 
And the Rose loved one ; 
For who recks the wind where it blows ? 
Or loves not the sun ? 

None knew whence the humble Wind stole, 

Poor sport of the skies — 
None dreamt that the Wind had a soul, 

In its mournful sighs ! 

Oh, happy Beam ! how canst thou prove 

That bright love of thine ? 
In thy light is the proof of thy love, 

Thou hast but — to shine ! 

How its love can the Wind reveal ? 

Unwelcome its sigh ; 
Mute — mute to its Rose let it steal — 

Its proof is — to die ! " 

Book III. Chap, 2. 

THE AFFECTIONS IMMORTAL. 

In the tale of human passion, in past ages, there is something 
of interest even in the remoteness of the time. We love to feel 
within us the bond which unites the most distant eras — men, na- 
tions, customs, perish ; the affections are immortal !' — they 
are the sympathies which unite the ceaseless generations. The 
past lives again, when we look upon its emotions — it lives in 
our own ! That which was, ever is ! The magician's gift, that 
revives the dead — that animates the dust of forgotten graves, is 
not in the author's skill — it is in the heart of the reader! — 
Book HI, Chap. 2. 

THE BIRTH OF LOVE. 

" Like a star in the seas above, 

Like a dream to the waves of sleep, 

Up — up — THE INCARNATE LOVE — 

She rose from the charmed deep I 
And over the Cyprian Isle 
The skies shed, their silent smile ; 
And the Forest's green heart was rife 
With the stir of the gushing life — 
The life that had leap'd to birth, 
In the veins of the happy earth ! 
Hail ! oh, hail ! 
The dimmest sea-cave below thee, 

The farthest sky-arch above, 
In their innermost stillness know thee. 

And heave with the Birth of Love. 
Gale ! soft Gale ! 



220 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Thou comest on thy silver wiuglets, 
From thy home in the tender west ; 

Now fanning her golden ringlets, 

Now hush'd on her heaving breast 

And afar on the murnuning sand, 

The Seasons wait hand in hand 

To welcome thee. Birth Divine, 

To the earth which is henceforth thine. 

" rSehold ! how she kneels in the shell, 
Bright pearl in its floating cell ! 
Behold ! how the shell's rose-hues 

The cheek and the breast of snow, 
And the delicate limbs suffuse 

Like a blush with a bashful glow, 
4P» Sailing on, slowly sailing 

O'er the wild water ; 
All hail ! as the fond light is hailing 

Her daughter. 

All hail! 
We are thine, all thine evermore : 
Not a leaf on the laughing shore, 
Not a wave on the heaving sea, 

Nor a single sigh 

In the boundless sky. 
But is vow'd evermore to thee ! 

** And thou, my beloved one — thou, 
As I gaze on thy soft eyes now, 
Methinks from their depths I view 
The Holy Birth born anew ; 
Thy lids are the gentle cell 

Where the young Love blushing lies; 
See ! she breaks from the mystic shell, 

She comes from thy tender eyes ! 
Hail ! all hail ! 
She comes as she came from the sea, 
To my soul as it looks on thee ; 
She comes, she comes ! 
She comes as she came from the sea I 
To my soul as it looks on thee ! 

Hail ! all hail ! Book III. Chap. 2. 

THE SONG OF GLAUCUS. 

"As the bark floateth on o'er the summer-lit sea, 
Floats my heart o'er the deeps of its passion for thee; 
All lost in the space, without terror it glides. 
For bright with thy soul is the face of the tides. 
Now heaving, now hushed, is that passionate ocean, 

As it catches thy smile or thy sighs ; 
And the twin-stars that shine on the wanderer's devotion, 

Its guide and its god — are thine eyes ! 

The bark may go down, should the cloud sweep above. 

For its being is bound to the light of thy love. 

As thy faith and thy smile are its life and its joy. 

So thy frown or thy change are the storms that destroy ; 



THE LAST DA YS OF POMPEII. 221 

Ah ! sweeter to sink while the sky is serene, 

If time hath a change for thy heart ! 
If to live be to weep o'er what thou hast been, 

Let me die while I know what thou art ! " 

Book III. Chap. 2. 

A REGRET FOR CHILDHOOD. 

" It is not that our earlier Heaven 
Escapes its April showers, 
Or that to childhood's heart is given 
No snake amidst the flowers. 
Ah ! twined with grief, 
Each brightest leaf, 
That's wreath'd us by the Hours! 
Young though we be, the Past may sing 

The present feed its sorrow ; 
But hope shines bright on everything 
That waits us with the morrow. 
Like sun-lit glades. 
The dimmest shades 
Some rosy beam can borrow 

It is not that our later years 

Of cares are woven wholly. 
But smiles less swiftly chase the tears, 

And wounds are healed more slowly. 
And Memory's vow 
To lost ones now. 
Makes joys too bright, unholy. 
And ever fled the Iris bow 

That smiled when clouds were o'er us. 
If storms should burst, uncheer'd we go, 
A drearier waste before us ; — 
And with the toys 
Of childish joys, 
We've broke the staff that bore us ! " 

Book IV. Chap 2. 

GLAUCUS'S AVOWAL OF CHRISTIANITY. 

After the destruction of Pompeii, I met once more with Olin- 
thus — saved, alas ! only for a day, and falling afterwards a 
martyr to the indomitable energy of his zeal. In my preserva- 
tion from the lion and the earthquake he taught me to behold 
the hand of the unknown God ! I listened — believed — adored ! 
My own, my more than ever beloved lone, has also embraced 
the creed ! — a creed, Sallust, which, shedding light over this 
world, gathers its concentrated glory, like a sunset, over the 
next ! We know that we are united in the soul, as in the flesh, 
forever and forever ! Ages may roll on, our very dust be dis- 
solved, the earth shrivelled like a scroll ; but round and rouncj 
the circle of eternity rolls the wheel of life — imperishable — unr 
ceasing ! And as the earth from the sun, so immortality drinks 



222 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

happiness from virtue, which is the smile upon the face of God ! 
Visit me, then, Sallust ; bring with you the learned scrolls of 
Epicurus, Pythagoras, Diogenes ; arm yourself for defeat ; and 
let us, amidst the groves of Academus, dispute, under a surer 
guide than any granted to our fathers, on the mighty problem 
of the true ends of life and the nature of the soul. .... 

If anything can make me forget that I am an Athenian and 
not free, it is partly the soothing — the love — watchful, vivid, 
sleepless — of lone : — a love that has taken a new sentiment in 
our new creed — a love which none of our poets, beautiful 
though they be, had shadowed forth in description ; for mingled 
with religion, it partakes of religion ; it is blended with pure 
and unworldly thoughts ; it is that which we may hope to carry 
through eternity, and keep, therefore, white and unsullied, that 
we may not blush to confess it to our God ! This is the true 
type of the dark fable of our Grecian Eros and Psyche — it is, in 
truth, the soul asleep in the arms of love. — Glaucus to Sallust : 
Last Chapter, 

A NEW SENTIMENT IN LOVE. 

What we now term, and feel ' to be, senthnent in love, was 
very little known amongst the ancients, and at this day, is 
scarcely acknowledged out of Christendom. It is a feeling in- 
timately connected with — not a belief, but a conviction, that the 
passion is of the soul, and, like the soul, immortal. Chateau- 
briand, in that Vv^ork so full both of error and of truth, his essay 
on "The Genius of Christianity," has referred to this sentiment 
with his usual eloquence. It makes, indeed, the great distinc- 
tion between the amatory poetry of the moderns and that of the 
ancients. And I have thought that I might, with some conso- 
nance of truth and nature, attribute the consciousness of this 
sentiment to Glaucus after his conversion to Christianity, though 
he is only able vaguely to guess at, rather than thoroughly to 
explain, its cause. — Author's Note, 

THE STORY OF POMPEII. 

At present (1834) there have been about three hundred and 
fifty or four hundred skeletons discovered in Pompeii ; but as a 
great part of the city is yet to be disinterred, we can scarcely 
calculate the number of those who perished in the destruction. 
Still, however, we have every reason to conclude that they were 
very few in proportion to those who escaped. The ashes had 
been evidently cleared away from many of the houses, no doubt 
for the purpose of recovering whatever treasures had been left 
behind. The mansion of our friend Sallust is one of those thus 



THE LAST DA YS OF POMPEII. 223 

revisited. The skeletons which, reanimated for awhile, the 
reader has seen play their brief parts upon the stage, under the 
names of Burbo, Calenus, Diomed, Julia, and Arbaces, were 
found exactly as described in the text : — may they have been 
re-animated more successfully for the pleasure of the reader 
than they have been for the solace of the author, who has vainly 
endeavored, in the work which he now concludes, to beguile the 
most painful, gloomy, and despondent period of a life, in the 
web of which has been woven less of white than the world may 
deem ! But like most other friends, the Imagination is capri- 
cious and forsakes us often at the moment in which we most 
need its aid. As we grow older, we begin to learn that, of the 
two, our most faithful and steadfast comforter is — Custom. 
But I should apologize for this sudden and unseasonable indul- 
gence of a momentary weakness — it is hit for a moment. With 
returning health returns also that energy without which the soul 
were given us in vain, and which enables us calmly to face the 
evils of our being, and resolutely to fulfil its objects. There is 
but one philosophy (though there are a thousand schools), and 
its name is Fortitude ; " To bear is to conquer our fate." 
— Author's Note. 



HAROLD, 
THE LAST OF THE SAXON KINGS. 



Other sons of Earl Godwin. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Hilda, a daughter of the royalty of Denmark. The reputed Morthwyrtha, 

the heathen prophetess. 
Edith, grandchild of Hilda, the orphan daughter of Ethelwolf, and Hilda's 

daughter. A Christian maid and the heroine of the story. 
King Edward, afterwards named the Confessor, the Saxon King. 
William, Count of the Normans, William the Conqueror. 
GiTHA, kinswoman of Hilda. 

Earl Godwin, husband of Githa, a banished earl. 
SwEYN, the eldest son of Earl Godwin. 
Harold, second son of Earl Godwin, and the last of the Saxon kings. 

WOLNOTH, 
TOSTIG, 

Leofwine, 

GURTH, 

Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and brother of Duke William. 
Rolf, Earl of Hereford. The King's nephew. 
FiTZosBORNE, Duke William's favorite confidant and haughtiest baron. 
William Mallet de Graville, a Norman. 
GoDRiTH, a young Saxon of considerable rank. 
Taillefar, a Norman. 

Lanfranc, of Pavia, called Lanfranc the Scholar. 

Matilda, descendant of Charlemagne and Alfred. Wedded to Duke Will- 
iam the Norman. 
Alfred, Bishop of Winchester, the worthiest prelate in the land. 
Haco, son of Sweyn. 

Thyra [ Daughters of Earl Godwin. Edith the wife of King Edward. 

Earl Alger, son of Leofric. 

Sexwolf, a Saxon. 

Gryffyth, the Welsh king. 

Lady Aldyth, wife of Gryffyth, and afterwards wife of Harold. 

Edgar, the Atheling. 



In treating of an age with which the general reader is so 
unfamiliar as that preceding the Norman Conquest, it is im- 
possible to avoid (especially in the earlier portions of my tale), 
those explanations of the very character of the time which would 
have been unnecessary if I had only sought in History the pict- 
uresque accompaniments to Romance. I have to do more 



HAROLD. 225 

than present an amusing picture of national manners — detail 
the dress, and describe the banquet. According to the plan I 
adopt, I have to make the reader acquainted with the imperfect 
fusion of races in Saxon England, familiarize him with the con- 
tests of parties and the ambition of chiefs, show him the 
strength and the weakness of a kindly but ignorant Church ; of 
a brave but turbulent Aristocracy ; of a People partially free, 
and naturally energetic, but disunited by successive immi- 
grations, and having lost much of the proud jealousies of na- 
tional liberty by submission to the preceding conquests of the 
Dane ; acquiescent in the sway of foreign kings, and with that 
bulwark against invasion which an hereditary order of aristoc- 
racy usually erects, loosened to its very foundations by the 
copious admixture of foreign nobles. I have to present to the 
reader, here, the imbecile priestcraft of the illiterate monk ; 
there, the dark superstition that still consulted the deities of the 
North by runes on the elm-bark and adjurations of the dead. 
And in contrast to these pictures of a decrepit monarchy and a 
fated race, I have to bring forcibly before the reader the vig- 
orous attributes of the coming conquerors — the stern will and 
deep guile of the Norman chief — the comparative knowledge of 
the rising Norman Church — the nascent spirit of chivalry in the 
Norman Vavasours ; a spirit destined to emancipate the very 
people it contributed to enslave, associated, as it imperfectly 
was, with the sense of freedom : disdainful, it is true, of the 
Villein, but proudly curbing, though into feudal limits, the dom- 
ination of the Liege. In a word, I must place fully before the 
reader, if I would be faithful to the plan of my work, the polit- 
ical and moral features of the age, as well as its lighter and 
livelier attributes, and so lead him to perceive, when he has 
closed the book, why England was conquered, and how England 
survived the Conquest. — Extract from Preface. 

THE BRAVE MAN. 

" The brave man wants no charms to encourage him to his 
duty, and the good man scorns all warnings that would deter 
him from fulfilling it." — Book I. Chap. 2. 

STERN NATURES ATTRACTED BY MEEK ONES. 

It is ever the case with stern and stormy spirits, that the 
meek ones which contrast them steal strangely into their affec- 
tions. This principle of human nature can alone account for 
the enthusiastic devotion which the mild sufferings of the Sav- 
ior awoke in the fiercest exterminators of the North. In pro- 
portion, often, to the warrior's ferocity, was his love to that Di- 
15 



226 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

vine model, at whose sufferings he wept, to whose tomb he wan- 
dered barefoot, and whose example of compassionate forgive- 
ness he would have thought himself the basest of men to follow ! 
— Book I. Chap. I. 

PRUDENCE, PATIENCE, LABOR, VALOR. 

Prudence, patience, labor, valor ; these are the stars that rule 
the career of mortals. — Book III, Chap. 2. 

BELIEF AS THE WIND. 

The Prophetess bowed her head and replied, " Belief cometh 
as the wind. Can the tree say to the wind, ' Rest thou on my 
boughs ? ' or Man to Belief, ' Fold thy wings on my heart ! ' " — 
•Book III. Chap. 4. 

FATE OF MAN SWORN TO GUARD HIS COUNTRY. 

The fate of a man sworn to guard his country, love justice, 
and do right. — Book III. Chap. 4. 

SMOKE AND FLAME. 

A dead silence succeeded, till, pointing with her staff to the 
fire, the Vala said, '' Lo, where the smoke and the fiame con- 
tend ! — the smoke rises in dark gyres to the air, and escapes to 
join the wrack of clouds. From the first to the last we trace its 
birth and its fall ; from the heart of the fire to the descent in the 
rain, so is it with human reason, which is not the light but the 
smoke ; it struggles but to darken us ; it soars but to melt in the 
vapor and dew. Yet lo, the flame burns in our hearth till the 
fuel fails, and goes at last, none know whither. But it lives in 
the air though we see it not ; it lurks in the stone and waits the 
flash of the steel ; it coils round the dry leaves and sere stalks, 
and a touch re-illumines it ; it plays in the marsh — it collects in 
the heavens — it appalls us in the lightning — it gives warmth 
to the air — life of our life, and element of all elements. O 
Githa, the flame is the light of the soul, the element everlasting ; 
and it liveth still, when it escapes from our view ; it burneth in 
the shapes to which it passes ; it vanishes but is never extinct." 
— Book V. Chap. I. 

ATTESTING THE BETROTHAL. 

Then Hilda, placing one hand over their heads, and raising 
the other toward heaven, all radiant with bursting stars, said in 
her deep and thrilling tones, — 

" Attest the betrothal of these young hearts, O ye Powers 
that draw nature to nature by spells which no Galdra can trace, 



HAROLD. 227 

and have wrought in the secrets of creation no mystery so per- 
fect as love. — Attest it, thou temple, thou altar ! — attest it, O sun 
and O air ! While the forms are divided, may the souls cling 
together — sorrow with sorrow, and joy with joy. And when, at 
length, bride and bridegroom are one, — O stars, may the trouble 
with which ye are charged have exhausted its burthen ; may no 
danger molest, and no malice disturb, but, over the marriage-bed, 
shine in peace, O ye stars ! " — Book V. Chap. 7. 

THE BOLD SYMPATHIZE WITH THE BOLD. 

The bold sympathize with the bold ; and in great hearts, there 
is always a certain friendship for a gallant foe. — Book VIII. 
Chap. I. 

WHAT LOVE HAS MOST TO DREAD. 

What love has most to dread in the wild heart of aspiring 
man, is not persons, but things, — is not things, but their sym- 
bols.— ^^^>^ VIII. Chap. 3. 

MYSTIC LAW OF DESIRE. 

Harold lifted his eyes toward the stars, and murmured — " If 
it be a sin, as the priests say, to pierce the dark walls which sur- 
round us here, and read the future in the dim world beyond, why 
gavest thou, O Heaven, the reason, never resting, save when it 
explores ? Why hast thou set in the heart the mystic Law of 
Desire, ever toiling to the High, ever grasping at the Far ? '' 

Heaven answered not the unquiet soul. The clouds passed 
to and fro in their wanderings, the wind still sighed through the 
hollow stones, the fire shot with vain sparks toward the distant 
stars. In the cloud and the wind and the fire couldst thou read 
no answer from Heaven, unquiet soul ? — Book VIII. Chap. 5. 

MAN DRIVEN TO FAITH. 

There are sometimes event and season in the life of man the 
hardest and most rational, when he is driven perforce to faith 
the most implicit and submissive ; as the storm drives the wings 
of the petrel over a measureless sea, till it falls tame, and rejoic- 
ing at refuge, on the sails of some lonely ship. Seasons when 
difficulties, against which reason seems stricken into palsy, leave 
him bewildered in dismay — when darkness, which experience 
cannot pierce, wraps the conscience, as sudden night wraps the 
traveller in the desert — when error entangles his feet in its inex- 
tricable web — when, still desirous of the right, he sees before 
him but a choice of evil ; and the Angel of the Past, with a flam- 
ing sword, closes on him the gates of the Future. Then, Faith 



228 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

flashes on him, with a light from the cloud. Then, he clings to 
Prayer as a drowning wretch to the plank. Then, that solemn 
authority which clothes the Priest, as the interpreter between the 
soul and the Divinity, seizes on the heart that trembles with 
terror and joy ; then, that mysterious recognition of Atonement, 
of Sacrifice, of purifying lustration (mystery which lies hid in the 
core of all religions), smooths the frown on the Past, removes 
the flaming sword from the Future. The Orestes escapes from 
the hounding Furies, and follows the oracle to the spot where 
the cleansing dews shall descend on the expiated guilt. 

He who hath never known in himself, nor marked in another, 
such strange crisis in human fate, cannot judge of the strength 
and the weakness it bestows. But till he can so judge, the 
spiritual part of all history is to him a blank scroll, a sealed 
volume. He cannot comprehend what drove the fierce Heathen, 
cowering and humbled, into the fold of the Church ; what 
peopled Egypt with eremites ; what lined the roads of Europe 
and Asia with pilgrim homicides ; what, in the elder world, while 
Jove yet reigned on Olympus, is couched in the dim traditions 
of the expiation of Apollo, the joy-god, descending into Hades ; 
or why the sinner went blithe and light-hearted from the healing 
lustrations of Eleusis. In all these solemn riddles of the Jove- 
world, and the Christ's, is involved the imperious necessity that 
man hath of repentance and atonement ; through their clouds, 
as a rainbow, shines the covenant that reconciles the God and 
the Man. — Book X. Chap. 2. 

THREE THINGS SILENT. 

" When the soul communes with itself the lip is silent." 

" True," said Haco, " and I am no babbler. Three things 

are ever silent : Thought, Destiny, and the Grave." — Book X. 

Chap 2. 

HEAVEN, WHERE LOVE IS. 

" It is the persons we love that make beautiful the haunts we 
have known," answered the betrothed. " Those persons at 
least we shall behold again, and wherever they are — there is 
heaven." — Book X. Chap. 2. 

HAPPINESS DERIVED FROM THE AFFECTIONS. 

It is the nature of that happiness which we derive from our 
affections to be calm ; its immense influence upon our outward 
life is not known till it is troubled or withdrawn. By placing 
his heart at peace, man leaves vent to his energies and passions, 
and permits their current to flow toward the aims and objects 



HAROLD. 229 

which interest labor or arouse ambition. Tlius absorbed in the 
occupation without, he is lulled into a certain forgetfulness of 
the value of that internal repose which gives health and vigor to 
the faculties he employs abroad. But once mar this scarce-felt, 
almost invisible harmony, and the discord extends to the remot- 
est chords of our active being. Say to the busiest man whom 
thou seest in mart, camp, or senate, who seems to thee all intent 
upon his worldly schemes, " Thy home is reft from thee — thy 
household gods are shattered — that sweet noiseless content in 
the regular mechanism of the springs which set the large wheels 
of thy soul into movement, is thine nevermore ! " — and straight- 
way all exertion seems robbed of its object — all aim of its allur- 
ing charm. " Othello's occupation is gone ! " With a start, that 
man will awaken from the sun-lit visions of noontide ambition, 
and exclaim in his desolate anguish, " What are all the rewards 
to my labor, now thou hast robbed me of repose } How little 
are all the gains wrung from strife, in a world of rivals and foes, 
compared to the smile whose sweetness I knew not till it was 
lost ; and the sense of security from mortal ill which I took 
from the trust and sympathy of love ! " — Book X. Chap 10. 

THE SOUL REALLY GRAND, TESTED ONLY IN ITS ERRORS. 

The soul really grand is only tested in its errors. As we 
know the true might of the intellect by the rich resources and 
patient strength with which it redeems a failure, so do we prove 
the elevation of the soul by its courageous return into light, its 
instinctive rebound into higher air, after some error that has 
darkened its vision and soiled its plumes. — '-Book XI. Chap. 7. 

THE PRAYER OF GITHA. 

All clustered round Githa, the mother of the three guardians 
of the fated land, and all knelt before her by the side of Har- 
old. Suddenly, the widowed queen, the virgin wife of the last 
heir of Cerdic, rose, and holding on high the sacred rood over 
those bended heads, said, with devout passion, — " O Lord of 
hosts — we children of Doubt and Time, trembling in the dark, 
dare not take to ourselves to question thine unerring will. Sor- 
row and death, as joy and life, are at the breath of a mercy 
divine, and a wisdom all-seeing ; and out of the hours of evil 
thou drawest, in mystic circle, the eternity of Good. ' Thy will 
be done on earth as it is in heaven.' If, O Disposer of events, 
our human prayers are not adverse to thy pre-judged decrees, 
protect these lives, the bulwarks of our homes and altars, sons 
whom the land offers as a sacrifice. Mav thine angel turn 
aside the blade — as of old from the heart of Isaac ! But if, O 



230 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Ruler of Nations, in whose sight the ages are as moments, and 
generations but as sands in the sea, these lives are doomed, 
may the death expiate their sins, and, shrived on the battle- 
field, absolve and receive their souls ! " — Book XII. Chap. 2, 

DUTY HERE. 

Keep we to the broad truths before us ; duty here ; knowl- 
edge comes alone in the Hereafter. — Book XII. Chap. 4. 

SUPERSTITION NATIVE TO THE BORDER-LAND. 

Come what may, all change of creed, — be the faith ever so 
simple, the truth ever so bright and clear, — there is a supersti- 
tion native to that Border-land between the Visible and the 
Unseen, which will find its priest and its votaries, till the full 
and crowning splendor of Heaven shall melt every shadow from 
the world \—Book XII. Chap. 4. 

the death of EDITH. 

At the sight of that face, a wild shriek broke from Edith's 
heart. She started to her feet — put aside the monks with a 
wild and angry gesture, and bending over the face, sought with 
her long hair to wipe from it the clotted blood ; then, with con- 
vulsive fingers, she strove to loosen the buckler of the breast- 
mail. The knight knelt to assist her. " No, no," she gasped 
out. " He is mine — mine now ! " 

Her hands bled as the mail gave way to her efforts ; the tunic 
beneath was all dabbled wilh blood. She rent the folds, and 
on the breast, just above the silenced heart, were punctured in 
the old Saxon letters, the word " Edith ; " and just below, in 
characters more fresh, the word " England." 

" See, see ! " she cried in piercing accents ; and, clasping the 
dead in her arms, she kissed the lips, and called aloud, in words 
of the tenderest endearments, as if she addressed the living. 
All there knew then that the search was ended ; all knew that 
the eyes of love had recognized the dead. 

" Wed, wed," murmured the betrothed ; " wed at last ! O 
Harold, Harold ! the words of the Vala were true — and 
Heaven is kind ! " and laying her head gently on the breast of 
the dead, she smiled and died. — Book XII. Chap. 9. 

the tomb of HAROLD. 

At the east end of the choir in the abbey of Waltham, was 
long shown the tomb of the last Saxon king, inscribed with the 
touching words — " Harold Infelix." But not under that stone, 
according to the chronicler who should best know the truth, 



HAROLD. 231 

mouldered the dust of him in whose grave was buried an epoch 
in human annals. 

" Let his corpse," said Wil-liam the Norman, " let his Corpse 
guard the coasts which his life madly defended. Let the seas 
wail his dirge, and girdle his grave ; and his spirit protect the 
land which hath passed to the Norman's sway." 

And Mallet de Graville assented to the word of his chief, for 
his knightly heart turned into honor the latent taunt ; and well 
he knew, that Harold could have chosen no burial-spot so 
worthy his English spirit and his Roman end. 

The tomb at Waltham would have excluded the faithful ashes 
of the betrothed, whose heart had broken on the bosom she 
had found ; more gentle was the grave in the temple of Heaven, 
and hallowed by the bridal death-dirge of the everlasting sea. 

So, in that sentiment of poetry and love, which made half 
the religion of a Norman knight, Mallet de Graville suffered 
death to unite those whom life had divided. In the holy burial- 
ground that encircled a small Saxon chapel, on the shore, and 
near the spot on which William had leapt to land, one grave re- 
ceived the betrothed ; and the tomb of Waltham only honored 
an empty name. 

Eight centuries have rolled away, and where is the Norman 
now 1 or where is not the Saxon ? The little urn that sufficed, 
for the mighty lord is despoiled of his very dust ; but the tomb- 
less shade of the kingly freeman still guards the coasts, and 
rests upon the seas. In many a noiseless field, with Thoughts 
for Armies, your relics, O Saxon Heroes, have won back the 
victory from the bones of the Norman saints ; and whenever, 
with fairer fates, Freedom opposes Force, and Justice, redeem- 
ing the old defeat, smites down the armed Frauds that would 
consecrate the wrong, — smile, O soul of our Saxon Harold 
— smile, appeased, on the Saxon's land ! — The End. 



THE LAST OF THE BARONS. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Richard Nevile, Earl of Salisbury and Warwick, the last of the Barons. 

The Countess, wife of Warwick. 

Lord Montagu, Warwick's brother. 

Marmaduke Nevile, son of Sir Guy Nevil of Arsdale. 

Nicholas Alwyn, a goldsmith. 

Raoul de Fulke, a young noble. 

Adam Warner, a skilled mathematician and alchemist. 

SiBYLL W^ARNER, daughter of Adam. 

Isabel Nevile, daughter of Warwick, wedded to the Duke of Clarence. 

Anne Nevile, daugliter of Warwick. 

King Edward IV. 

George, Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward. 

Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales. 

Robert Hilyard, the outlaw chief. 

William, Lord Hastings, one of the most remarkable men of the age. 

Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, afterward Richard III. 

King Henry VI. 

Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI. 

Allerton, a young man personally attached to Henry. 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, wife of Edward IV. 

Duchess of Bedford, mother of Elizabeth. 

Lord Rivers, father of Elizabeth. 

Princess Margaret, sister of Edward, wedded to Charles the Bold. 

Count of Charolois, son of Duke Philip. 

Alice de Longueville, a lady of Queen Margaret's court. 

Lady Katherine Bonville, sister to Warwick. After Lord Bonville's 

death wedded to Hastings. 
George Nevile, Archbishop of York. 
Prince Edward, son of Henry VI. 
Louis XL of France. 
John of Calabria. 
Rene, father of Queen Margaret. 
Sir John Coniers. 
Friar Bungey, a magician. 



This was the first attempt of the Author in Historical Ro- 
mance upon English ground. Nor would he have risked the 
disadvantage of comparison with the genius of Sir Walter Scott 
had he not believed that that great writer and his numerous 
imitators had left altogether unoccupied the peculiar field in 
Historical Romance which the Author has here sought to bring 
into cultivation. In the "Last of the Barons," as in " Harold," 



THE LAST OF THE BARONS, 233 

the aim has been to illustrate the actual history of the period, 
and to bring into fuller display than general History itself has 
done, the characters of the principal personages of the time — 
the motives by which they were probably actuated — the state of 
parties — the condition of the people — and the great social in- 
terests which were involved in what, regarded imperfectly, ap- 
pear but the feuds of rival factions. 

"The Last of the Barons" has been by many esteemed the 
best of the Author's romances, and perhaps in the portraiture 
of actual character, and the grouping of the various interests 
and agencies of the time, it may have produced effects which 
render it more vigorous and life-like than any of the other at- 
tempts in romance by the same hand. 

It will be observed that the purely imaginary characters in- 
troduced are very few ; and, however prominent they may ap- 
pear, still, in order not to interfere with the genuine passions 
and events of history, they are represented as the passive suffer- 
ers, not the active agents, of the real events. Of these imagi- 
nary characters, the most successful is Adam Warner, the philos- 
opher in advance of his age ; indeed as an ideal portrait, I look 
upon it as the most original in conception, and the most finished 
in execution, of any to be found in my numerous prose works, 
" Zanoni " alone excepted. 

For the rest, I venture to think that the general reader will 
obtain from these pages a better notion of the important age, 
characterized by the decline of the feudal system, and im- 
mediately preceding that great change in society which we usually 
date from the accession of Henry VH., than he could other- 
wise gather without wading through a vast mass of neglected 
chronicles and antiquarian dissertations. — Preface. 

THE DAY SEPARATING CHILDHOOD FROM YOUTH. 

In our earlier years, most of us may remember that there was 
one day which made an epoch in life — the day that separated 
Childhood from Youth ; for that day seems not to come grad- 
ually, but to be a sudden crisis, an abrupt revelation. The buds 
of the heart open to close no more. — Book I. Chap. 2. 

POWERS OF REFLECTION — ORGAN OF LOCALITY. 

We trust we shall not be deemed discourteous, either, on the 
one hand, to those who value themselves on their powers of re- 
flection, or, on the other, to those who lay claim to what, in 
modern phrenological jargon, is called the Organ of Locality, 
when we venture to surmise that the two are rarely found in 
combination ; nay, that it seems to us a very evident truism, that 



234 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

in proportion to the general activity of the intellect upon sub- 
jects of pith and weight, the mind will be indifferent to those 
minute external objects by which a less contemplative under- 
standing will note, and map out, and impress upon the memory, 
the chart of the road its owner has once taken. — Book I. Chap. 4. 

PATIENCE 

Patience is a good palfrey, and will carry us a long day. — 
Book 1. Chap 5. 

woman's fancy and man's genius, 
The man pursued his work — the girl renewed her dream — 
the dark evening hour gradually stealing over both. The silence 
was unbroken, for the forge and the model were now at rest, 
save by the grating of Adam's file upon the metal, or by some 
ejaculation of complacency now and then vented by the enthu- 
siast. So, apart from the many-noised, gaudy, babbling world 
without, even in the midst of that bloody, turbulent, and semi- 
barbarous time, went on (the one neglected and unknown, the 
other loathed and hated) the two movers of the all that con- 
tinues the airy life of the Beautiful from age to age — the 
Woman's dreaming Fancy, and the man's active Genius. — Book 
III. Chap. I. 

GENTLENESS OF BEARING AND IRON WILL. 

In our common and more vulgar intercourse with life, we must 
have observed, that where external gentleness of bearing is ac- 
companied by a repute for iron will, determined resolution, 
and a serious, profound, and all-inquiring intellect, it carries with 
it a majesty wholly distinct from that charm which is exercised 
by one whose mildness of nature corresponds with the outward 
humility ; and, if it does not convey the notion of falseness, 
bears the appearance of that perfect self-possession, that calm 
repose of power, which intimidates those it influences far more 
than the imperious port and the loud voice. — Book III. Chap. 5. 

MAIDEN LOVING WORTHILY. 

*'A maiden, methinks," answered Sibyll, with reluctant but 
charming hesitation, ''cannot love truly, if she love unworthily , 
and if she love worthily, it is not rank nor wealth she loves." — 
Book III. Chap. 8. 

WHAT A NOBLE HEART DARES LEAST BELIE. 

" He dttrstnof,'" said Warwick, ^' because what a 7ioble heart dares 
least is to belie the plighted word, and what the kind heart shims 
most is to wrong the confiding friend.''' — Book IV. Chap. 2. 



THE LAST OF THE BARONS. 235 

NOT PROSPERITY THAT SPOILS THE HEART. 

The girl smiled at the young man's confusion. 

" It is not prosperity that spoils the heart," she said, touch- 
ingly, " unless it be mean, indeed. Thou rememberest, Master 
Alwyn, that when God tried his saint, it was by adversity and 
affliction."— i9^^/^ IV. Chap. 4. 

men's stature measured bv soul. 

In the hour of strait and need, we measure men's stature not 
by the body, but the soul ! — Book V. Chap. 4. 

the genius and the quack. 

The world was not large enough to contain two such giants 
— Bungey and Warner — the Genius and the Quack. To the best 
of our experience, the quacks have the same creed to our own 
day. He vowed deep vengeance upon his associate, and spared 
no arts to foment the popular hatred against him. Friar Bun- 
gey would have been a great critic in our day ! — Book V. Chap. 6. 

woman's true ambition. 
" Surely true ambition lives not only in the goods of fortune. 
Is there no nobler ambition than that of the vanity ? Is there 
no ambition of the heart ? — an ambition to console, to cheer the 
griefs of those who love and trust us ? — an ambition to build a 
happiness out of the reach of fate ? — an ambition to soothe some 
high soul, in its strife with a mean world — to lull to sleep its 
pain, to smile to serenity its cares t Oh, methinks, a woman's 
true ambition would rise the bravest when, in the very sight of 
death itself, the voice of him in whom her glory had dwelt through 
life should say, ' Thou fearest not to walk to the grave and to 
heaven by my side ! ' " — Book V. Chap. 7. 

: INGRATITUDE THE VICE OF MEN. 

" Alas ! " said Warwick, " whether man be rich or poor, in- 
gratitude is the vice of men , and you, who have felt it from the 
mob, menace me with it from a king. But each must carve out 
his own way through this earth, without over-care for applause 
or blame ; and the tomb is the sole judge of mortal memory ! " 
^Book VII. Chap. 4. 

j DISSIMULATION OFTEN HUMBLE. 

Dissimulation is often humble — often polished — often grave, 
sleek, smooth, decorous ; but it is rarely gay and jovial, a hearty 
laugher, a merry, cordial, boon companion. Such, however, 
was the felicitous craft of Edward IV, ; and, indeed, his spirits 



1 



236 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

were naturally SO high — his good-humor so flowing — that this 
joyous hypocrisy cost him no effort. — Book VII. Chap. 5. 

LOVE OF YOUTH TO YOUTH. 

Oh ! beautiful is the love of youth to youth, and touching the 
tenderness of womanhood to woman ; and fair in the eyes of the 
happy sun is the waking of holy sleep, and the virgin kiss upon 
virgin lips smiling and murmuring the sweet " Good morrow ! " 
—Book VIII Chap. 3. 

HOPE. 

Though Hope be a small child, she can carry a great an' 
chor \—Book VIII Chap. 4. 

LOVE KNOWS NO AGE. 

Love knows no age — it foresees no grave ! its happiness and 
its trust behold on the earth but one glory, melting into the hues 
of heaven, where they who love lastingly pass calmly on to live 
forever ! — Book VIII Chap. 5. 

LOVE CANNOT SACRIFICE WHAT MAKES LOVE. 

" Alas, my lord, I am but a poor casuist, but I feel that if I 
asked thee to forfeit whatever men respect, — honor, and repute 
for valor, — to be traitor and dastard, thou couldst love me no 
more ; and marvel you, if when man wooes woman to forfeit all 
that her sex holds highest — to be in woman what dastard and 
traitor is in man — she hears her conscience and her God speak 
in a louder voice than can come from a human lip ! The goods 
and pomps of the world we are free to sacrifice, and true love 
heeds and counts them not ; but true love cannot sacrifice that 
which makes up love — it cannot sacrifice the right to be loved 
below, the hope to love on in the realm above, the power to 
pray with a pure soul for the happiness it yearns to make, the 
blessing to seem ever good and honored in the eyes of the one 
by whom alone it would be judged — and therefore, sweet lord, 
true love never contemplates this sacrifice ; and if once it be- 
lieve itself truly loved, it trusts with a fearless faith in the love 
on whom it leans." — Book VIII Chap. 5. 

GRIEF AND SOLITUDE OF THE PURE. 

Amidst the grief and solitude of the pure, there comes, at 
times, a strange and rapt serenity-^a sleep-awake — over which 
the instinct of life beyond the grave glides like a noiseless 
dream ; and ever that heaven that the soul yearns for is colored 
by the fancies of the fond human heart, — each fashiDuing the 
above from the desires unsatisfied below. 



THE LAST OF THE BARONS, 237 

*' There," thought the musing maiden, " cruelty and strife 
shall cease — there, vanish the harsh differences of life — there, 
those whom we have loved and lost are found, and through the 
Son, who tasted of mortal sorrow, we are raised to the home of 
the Eternal Father ! " 

" And there," thought the aspiring sage, " the mind, dun- 
geoned and chained below, rushes free into the realms of space 
— there, from every mystery falls the veil — there, the Omniscient" 
smiles on those who, through the darkness of life, have fed that 
lamp, the soul, — there, thought, but the seed on earth, bursts 
into the flower, and ripens to the fruit ! " 

And on the several hopes of both maid and sage the eyes of 
the angel stars smiled with a common promise. — Book IX. 
Chap. 5. 

GOD EVERYWHERE. 

Night, to the earnest soul, opens the Bible of the Universe, 
and on the leaves of Heaven is written — " God is everywhere ! " 
—Book IX. Chap. 5. 

TRIFLING OBJECTS SUGGEST IDEAS. 

To the thinker, the most trifling external object often suggests 
ideas, which, like Homer's chain, extend, link after link, from 
earth to heaven. — Book IX. Chap. 5. 

BEFORE THE SLEEP OF INNOCENCE. 

Go to thine infant's couch, ere thou seek thine own, and, be- 
fore the sleep of Innocence, calm thyself back to Womanhood. 
— Book IX. Chap. 10. 

GOD KINDER THAN MAN CAN KNOW. 

God is kinder to us all than man can know ; for man looks 
only to the sorrow on the surface, and sees not the consolation 
in the deeps of the unwitnessed soul. — Book X. Chap. i. 

DESTINY BUT A PHANTOM. 

" It is destiny ! " — phrase of the weak human heart ! " It is 
destiny ! " dark apology for every error ! The strong and the 
virtuous admit no destiny ! On earth, guides Conscience — in 
heaven, watches God. And Destiny is but the phantom we in- 
voke to silence the one — to dethrone the other. — Book X. Chap. 6, 

THE DOMAIN OF THE HEART BEYOND THE REALM OF MEN. 

In the storms of a revolution which convulsed a kingdom and 
hurled to the dust a throne, Love saw but a single object — 
Science but its tranquil toil. Beyond the realm of men lies ever 
with its joy and sorrow, its vicissitude and change, the domain 



238 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

of the human heart. In the revolution, the toy of the scholar 
was restored to him ; in the revolution, the maiden mourned her 
lover. In the movement of the mass, each unit hath its separate 
passion. The blast that rocks the tree, shakes a different world 
in every leaf! — Book X. Chap. 10. 

WHEN CHIEFS ARE PERJURED. 

" When chiefs and suzerains are false and perjured. Lord 
Hastings," answered Montagu, " to obey them is not loyalt}^ 
but serfdom ; and revolt is not disloyalty, but a freeman's duty. 
One day thou mayest know that truth, but too late ! " — Book X. 
Chap. 7. 

GOD PRESENT ALWAY. 

From the ivory crucifix gleamed the sad and holy face of the 
God — present alway — and who, by faith and patience, linketh 
evermore grief to joy — but earth to heaven. — Chap. 11. 

THE maiden's true DOWER. 

At the repetition of that implied desire to transfer her also to 
another — a noble indignation came to mar the calm for which 
she had hitherto not vainly struggled. " Oh man ! " she ex^ 
claimed, with passion, " does thy deceit give me the right to de* 
ceivQ another .-* I — I wed ! — I — I — vow at the altar — a love 
dead, dead forever — dead as my own heart ! Why dost thou 
mock nae with the hollow phrase, ' Thou art pure and stainless .'' ' 
Is the virginity of the soul still left .'' Do the tears I have shed 
for thee — doth the thrill of my heart when I heard thy voice — 
doth the plighted kiss that burns, burns now into my brow, and 
on my lips — do these, these leave me free to carry to a new af- 
fection the cinders and ashes of a soul thou hast ravaged and 
deflowered "i Oh, coarse and rude belief of men, — that nought 
is lost, if the mere form be pure ! The freshness of the first 
feelings, the bloom of the sinless thought, the sigh, the blush of 
the devotion — never, never felt but once ! these, these make the 
true dower a maiden should bring to the he^rt to which she 
comes as wife." — Book XII. Chap. 2. 

the DEATH OF WARWICK. 

But numbers rushed on numbers, as the fury of conflict urged 
on the lukewarm. "Montagu was beaten to his knee — Warwick 
covered him with his body — a hundred axes resounded on the 
earl's stooping casque — a hundred blades gleamed round the 
joints of his harness : — a simultaneous cry was heard : — over the 
mounds of the slain, through the press into the shadow of the 
oaks, dashed Gloucester's charger. The conflict had ceased — 



THE LAST OF THE BARONS. 



239 



the executioners stood mute in a half-circle. Side by side, axe 
and sword still griped in their hands, lay Montagu and Warwick. 
The young duke, his vizor raised, contemplated the fallen foes 
in silence. Then dismounting, he unbraced with his own hand 
the earl's helmet. Revived for a moment by the air, the hero's 
eyes unclosed, his lips moved, he raised, with a feeble effort, 
the gory battle-axe, and the armed crowd recoiled in terror. 
But the earl's soul dimly conscious, and about to part, had es- 
caped from that scene of strife — its later thoughts of wrath and 
vengeance — to more gentle memories, to such memories as fade 
the last from true and manly hearts ! 

" Wife ! — child ! " murmured the earl, indistinctly. " Anne — 
Anne ! Dear ones, God comfort ye ! " And with these words 
the breath went — the head fell heavily on its mother earth — the 
face set, calm and undistorted, as the face of a soldier should 
be, when a brave death has been worthy of a brave life. — Book 
XII. Chap, 7. 

EDWARD, THE MAN OF THE AGE. 

High from the battlements against the westering beam floated 
Edward's conquering flag — a sun shining to the sun. Again, 
and the third time, rang the trumpets, and on the balcony, his 
crown upon his head, but his form still sheathed in armor, 
stood the king. What mattered to the crowd his falseness and 
his perfidy — his licentiousness and cruelty? All vices ever van- 
ish in success ! Hurrah for King Edward I The man of the 
Age suited the age, had valor for. its war and cunning- for its 
peace, and the sympathy of the age was with him ! So there 
stood the king; — at his right hand, Elizabeth, with her infant 
boy (the heir of England) in her arms — the proud face of the 
duchess seen over the queen's shoulder. By Elizabeth's side 
was the Duke of Gloucester, leaning on his sword, and at the 
left of Edward, the perjured Clarence bowed his fair head to the 
joyous throng ! At the sight of the victorious king, of the lovely 
queen, and, above all, of the young male heir, who promised 
length of days to the line of York, the crowd burst forth with a 
hearty cry — " Long live the king and the king's son ! " Me- 
chanically Elizabeth turned her moistened eyes from Edward to 
Edward's brother, and suddenly, as with a mother's prophetic 
instinct, clasped her infant closer to her bosom, when she 
caught the glittering and fatal eye of Richard Duke of Glouces- 
ter (York's young hero of the day, Warwick's grim avenger in the 
future), fixed upon that harmless life — destined to interpose a 
feeble obstacle between the ambition of a ruthless intellect and 
the heritage of the English throne ! — The Efid. 



CALDERON THE COURTIER. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Philip III. of Spain. 

Duke of Lerma. 

RoDERiGO Calderon, Count Oliva, Marquis de Siete Iglesias. 

Fray Louis de Aliaza, a renowned Jesuit and confessor to the king. 

Duke d'Uzeda, son of the Cardinal Duke. 

Don Felix de Castro, an old noble. 

Don Diego Sarmiento de Mendo. 

Martin Fonseca, a brave soldier of an ancient but impoverished house. 

Philip, the Infant of Spain. 

Beatrix Coello, a young actress, daughter of Roderigo and his wife Inez. 

Don Juan de la Nuza. 

Caspar de Guzman, a gentleman of the Prince's chamber. 



It was midnight, in the chapel of the convent. 

The moonlight shone with exceeding lustre through the tall 
casements and lit into a ghastly semblance of life the marble 
images of saint and martyr, that threw their long shadows over 
the consecrated floor. Nothing could well be conceived more 
dreary, solemn, and sepulchral, than that holy place : its dis- 
tainted and time-hallowed walls ; the impenetrable mass of dark- 
ness that gathered into those recesses which the moonlight 
failed to reach ; its antique and massive tombs, above which re- 
clined the sculptured effigies of some departed patroness or 
abbess, who had exchanged a living grave for the Mansions of 
the Blest. But there — oh, wonderful human heart ! — even there, 
in that spot, the very homily and warning against earthly affec- 
tions, and mortal hopes — even there, cpuldst thou beat with as 
wild, as bright, and as pure a passion as ever heaved the breast, 
and shone in the eyes of Beauty, in the free air that ripples the 
Guadiana, or amidst the twilight dahc6 of Castilian maids. — 
Chap, 8. 

EXECUTION OF RODERIGO CALDERON. 

An immense crowd, one bright day in summer, were assem- 
bled in the place of execution. A shout of savage exultation 
rent the air as Roderigo Calderon, Marquis de Siete Iglesias, 



CALDERON THE COURTIER. 241 

appeared upon the scaffold. But when the eyes of the multitude 
rested — not upon that lofty and stately form, in all the pride of 
manhood, which they had been accustomed to associate with 
their fears of the stern genius and iron power of the favorite — 
but upon a bent and spectral figure, that seemed already on the 
verge of a natural grave, with a face ploughed deep with traces 
of unutterable woe, and hollow eyes that looked, with dim and 
scarce conscious light, over the human sea that murmured and 
swayed below, the tide of the popular emotion changed ; to rage 
and triumph succeeded shame and pity. Not a hand was lifted 
up in accusation — not a voice was raised in rebuke or joy. Be- 
side Calderon stood the appointed priest, whispering cheer and 
consolation. "Fear not, my son," said the holy man. "The 
pang of the body strikes years of purgatory from thy doom. 
Think of this, and bless even the agony of this hour." 

" Yes ! " muttered Calderon ; "I do bless this hour. Inez 
thy daughter has avenged thy murder ! May Heaven accept the 
sacrifice ! and may my eyes, even athwart the fiery gulf, awaken 
upon thee ! " 

With that a serene and contented smile passed over the face 
on which the crowd gazed with breathless awe. — Chap. 11. 
16 



PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 



LEADING CHARACTERS. 

Pausanias, Regent of Sparta, and general of the allied troops at Plataea. 

CiMON, son of Miltiades. 

Aristides. 

Antagoras, a Greek. 

GoNGYLUS, a Greek, the governor of Byzantium. 

Uliades of Samos. 

Alcman, the foster brother of Pausanias. 

Thrasyllus, a Spartan of rank. 

Lysander, a Spartan. 

Diagoras. 

Cleonice, daiighter of Diagoras. 

Ariamanes, kinsman to Xerxes. 

Datis the Mede, a warrior, brother to the most renowned of the Magi. 

Polydorus. 

Gelon. 

Cleomenes. 

Periclides, ^ 

Zeuxidamus, > representatives of the Spartan people. 

Agesilaus, ) 

Alithea, mother of Pausanias. 

Percalus, a Spartan girl, betrothed to Lysander. 



MOTHON S SONG. 



Carry a sword in the myrtle bough, 
Ye who would honor the tyrant-slayer ; 
I, in the leaves of the myrtle bough, 
Carry a tyrant to slay myself. 

I pluck'd the branch with a hasty hand. 
But love was lurking amidst the leaves; 
His bow is bent and his shaft is poised, 
And I must perish or pass the bough. 

Maiden, I come with a gift to thee ; 
Maiden, I come with a myrtle wreath ; 
Over thy forehead, or round thy breast. 
Bind, I employ thee, my myrtle wreath. 

From hand to hand by the banquet lights 
On with the myrtle bough passes song ; 
From hand to hand by the silent stars 
"What with the myrtle wreath passes ? Love. 



PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 243 

I bear the god in a myrtle wreath, 
Under the stars let him pass to thee . 
Empty his quiver and bind his wings, 
Then pass the myrtle wreath back to me. 

Book I, Chap. 4. 
FEWER BLOWS THE BETTER. 

The fewer blows the better. Brave men fight if they must; 
wise men never fight if they can help it. — Book II. Chap. 3. 

WOMAN YEARNS TO BE SOOTHER. 

Centuries roll, customs change, but, ever since the time of the 
earliest mother, woman yearns to be the soother. — Book II. 
Chap. 5. 

THE ISLE OF SPIRITS. 

Many wonders on the ocean 

By the moonlight may be seen ; 
Under moonlight on the Euxine 

Rose the blessed silver isle, 

As Leostratus of Croton, 

At the Pythian god's behest, ^ 

' Steered along the troubled waters 

To the tranquil spirit-land. 

In the earthquake of the ba-ttle. 

When the Locrians reel'd before 
Croton's shock of marching iron, 

Strode a Phantom to their van : 

Strode the shade of Locrian Ajax, 

Guarding still the native soil. 
And Leostratus, confronting, 

Wounded fell before the spear. 

Leech and herb the wound could heal not ; 

Said the Pythian god, " Depart, 
Voyage o'er the troubled Euxine 

To the tranquil spirit-land. 

" There abides the Locrian Ajax. 

He who gave the wound shall hea ; 
Godlike souls are in their mercy 

Stronger yet than in their wrath." 

While at ease on lulled waters 

Rose the blessed silver isle. 
Purple vines in lengthening vistas 

Knit the hill-top to the beach. 

And the beach had sparry caverns, 

And the floor of golden sands. 
And wherever soar'd the cypress. 

Underneath it bloom' d the rose. 



244 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Glimmer' d there amid the vine-trees, 
Thoro' cavern, over beach, 

Life-like shadows of a beauty 
Which the living know no more; 

Towering statures of great heroes. 
They who fought at Thebes and Troy ; 

And with looks that poets dream of 
Beam'd the women heroes loved. 

* Kingly, forth before their comrades. 
As the vessel touch'd the shore, 
Came the stateliest Two by Hymen 
Ever hallow' d into One. 

As He strode, the forests trembled 
To the awe that crown'd his brow : 

As She stepp'd, the ocean dimpled 
To the ray that left her smile. 

"Welcome hither, fearless warrior ! " 
Said a voice in which there slept 

Thunder-sounds to scatter armies, 
As a north wind scatters leaves. 

" Welcome hither, wounded sufferer," 

Slid a voice of music low 
As the coo of doves that nestle 

Under summer boughs at noon. 

" Who are ye, O shapes of glory .'"' 
Ask'd the wondering living man : 
Quoth the Man-ghost, " This is Helen, 
And the Fair is for the Brave. 

^' Fairest prize to bravest victor ; 

Whom doth Greece her bravest deem .-*" 
Said Leostratus, " Achilles : " 

" Bride and bridegroom then are we." 

" Low I kneel to thee, Pelides, 
But, O marvel, she thy bride, 

She whose guilt unpeopled Hellas, 

She whose marriage lights fired Troy 1 " 

Frown'd the large front of Achilles, 
Overshadowing sea and sky. 

Even as when between Olympus 
And Oceanus hangs storm. 

*' Know, thou dullard," said Pelides, 
" That on the funereal pyre 

Earthly sins are purged from glory, 
And the Soul is as the Name. 

" If to her in life — a Paris, 

If tome in life — a slave, 
Helen's mate is here Achilles, 

Mine — the sister of the stars. 



PA USA NI AS, THE SPARTAN. 245 

*' Naught of her survives but beauty, 

Naught of me survives but fame ; 
Here the Beautiful and Famous 

Intermingle evermore." 

Then throughout the Blessed Island 

Sung aloud the Race of Light, 
Know, the Beautiful and Famous 

Marry here for evermore ! 

Book III. Chap. 4. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUL, 

Out of its development here, that soul comes on to a new 
development elsewhere. If here the beginning lead to that 
new development in what we call virtue, it moves to light and 
joy ; if it can only roll on through the grooves it has here 
made for itself, in what we call vice and crime, its path is dark- 
ness and wretchedness. — Book III. Chap. i. 

MANY KINDS OF MUSIC. 

Thou knowest that there are many kinds of music — for instance, 
the Doric, the ^olian, the Ionian — in Hellas. The Lydians have 
their music, the Phrygians theirs, too. The Scyth and the Mede 
doubtless have their own. Each race prefers the music it culti- 
vates, and finds fault with the music of other races. And yet a 
man who has learned melody and measure will recognize a 
music in them all. So it is with virtue, the music of the human 
soul. It differs in differing races. But he who has learned to 
know what virtue is can recognize its harmonies, wherever they 
be heard. And thus the soul that fulfils its own notions of 
music, and carries them up to its idea of excellence, is the mas- 
ter-soul ; and in the regions to which it goes, when the breath 
leaves the lips, it pursues the same art set free from the tram- 
mels that confined and the false judgments that marred it 
here. For then the soul is no longer Spartan, or Ionian, Lydi- 
an, Median, or Scythian. Escaped into the upper air it is the 
citizen of universal freedom and universal light. And hence it 
does not live as a ghost in gloomy shades, being merely a pale 
memory of things that have passed away ; but in its primitive 
being as an emanation from the one divine principle which pen- 
etrates everywhere, vivifies all things, and enjoys in all. — Book 
III, Chap. I. 

LOVE, THE CREATIVE POWER. 

" What drew forth that music ? " he asked, smiling. " My 
hand and my will, from a genius not present, not visible. Was 
that genius a blind fate ? No, it was a grand intelligence. Na- 



246 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

ture is to the Deity what my hand and will are to the unseen 
genius of the musician. They obey an intelligence and they 
form a music. If creation proceed from an intelligence, what we 
call fate is but the consequence of its laws. And Nature oper- 
ates not in the external world alone, but in the core of all life ; 
therefore in the mind of man obeying only what some supreme 
intelligence has placed there ; therefore in man's mind produc- 
ing music or discord, according as he has learned the principles 
of harmony, that is, of good. And there be sages who declare 
that Intelligence and Love are the same. Yet," added the Mo- 
thon, with an aspect solemnly compassionate, " not the love 
thou mockest by the name of Aphrodite. No mortal eye 
hath ever seen that love within the known sphere, yet all 
insensibly feel its reign. What keeps the world together but 
affection I What makes the earth bring forth its fruits but the 
kindness which beams in the sunlight and descends in the dews ? 
What makes the lioness watch over her cubs, and the bird, with 
alt air for its wanderings, come back to the fledglings in its nest ? 
Strike love, the conjoiner, from creation, and creation returns to 
a void. Destroy love, the parental, and life is born but to per- 
ish. Where stop the influence of love, or how limit multiform 
degree ^ Love guards the fatherland ; crowns with turrets the 
walls of the freeman. What but love binds the citizens of states 
together, and frames and heeds the laws that submit individual 
liberty to the rule of the common good ? Love creates, love 
cements, love enters and harmonizes all things. And as like at- 
tracts like, so love attracts in the hereafter the lovmg souls that 
conceived it here. From the region where it summons them, its 
opposites are excluded. There ceases war ; there ceases pain. 
There, indeed, intermingle the beautiful and glorious, but beau- 
ty purified from earthly sin, the glorious resting from earthly 
toil. Ask ye how to know on earth where love is really presid- 
ing? Not in Paphos, not in Amathus. Wherever thou seest 
beauty and good ; wherever thou seest life, and that life per- 
vaded with faculties of joy, there thou seest love ; there thou 
shouldst recognize the Divinity ! " 

" And where I see misery and hate," said the Spartan, "what 
should I recognize there ? " 

" Master," returned the singer, " can the good come with- 
out a struggle ? Is the beautiful accomplished without strife ? 
Recall the tales of primeval chaos, when, as sung the Ascraean 
singer, love first darted into the midst ; imagine the heave and 
throe of joining elements; conjure up the first living shapes, born 
of the fluctuating slime and vapor. Surely they were things in- 
complete, deformed ghastly fragments of being, as are the 



PAUSAJVIAS, THE SPARTAN. 247 

dreams of a maniac. Had creative Love stopped there, and 
thou, standing on the height of some fair completed world, had 
viewed the warring portents, wouldst thou not have said, But 
these are the works of Evil and Hate ? Love did not stop there, 
it worked on ; and out of the chaos once ensouled, this glorious 
world swung itself into ether, the completed sister of the stars. 
Again, O my listeners, contemplate the sculptor, when the block 
from the granite shaft first stands, rude and shapeless, before 
him. See him in his earlier strife with the obstinate matter — 
how uncouth the first outline of limb and feature ; unlovelier often 
in the rugged commencements of shape than when the dumb 
mass stood shapeless. If the sculptor had stopped there, the 
thing might serve as an image for the savage of an abom- 
inable creed, engaged in the sacrifice of human flesh. But he 
pauses not, he works on. Stroke by stroke comes from the stone 
shape of more beauty than man himself is endowed with, and in 
a human temple stands a celestial image. 

*' Thus is it with a soul in the mundane sphere ; it works its 
way on through the adverse matter. We see its work half com- 
pleted ; we cry, ' Lo ! this is misery, this is hate,' because the 
chaos is not yet a perfected world, and the stone block is not 
yet a statue of Apollo. But for that reason must we pause ? 
No ; we must work on, till the victory brings the repose. 

" All things come into order from the war of contraries ; the ele- 
ments fight and wrestle to produce the wild flower at our feet ; 
from a wild flower man hath striven and toiled to perfect 
the marvellous rose of the hundred leaves. Hate is necessary 
for the energies of love, evil for the activity of good ; until, I say, 
the victory is won, until Hate and Evil are subdued, as the 
sculptor subdues the stone ; and then rises the divine image 
serene forever, and rests on its pedestal in the Uranian Temple. 
Lift thine eyes ; that temple is yonder. O Pausanias, the 
sculptor's workroom is the earth." — Book III. Chap, i. 

DEWDROP. 

" Dewdrop that weepest on the sharp-barbed thorn, 
Why didst thou fall from Day's golden chalices? 
* My tears bathe the thorn,' said the Dewdrop, 
*To nourish the bloom of the rose.' 

** Soul of the Infant, why to calamity 
Comest thou wailing from the calm spirit-source? 
' Ask of the Dew,' said the Infant, 
* Why it descends on the thorn ! ' 

" Dewdrop from storm, and soul from calamity 
Vanish soon — whither? let the Dew answer thee; 
' Have not my tears been my glory ? 
Tears drew me up to the sun.' 



248 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

" What were thine uses, that thou art glorified ? 
What did thy tears give, profiting earth or sky ? 
* There to the thorn-stem a blossom : 
Here, to the Iris a tint.' " 

Book III. Chap. I. 

CREED OF THE PERSIANS. 

Knowest thou not that in the creed of the Persians each mor- 
tal is watched on earth by a good spirit and an evil one ? And 
they who loved us below, or to whom we have done beneficent 
and gentle deeds, if they go before us into death, pass to the 
side of the good spirit, and strengthen him to save and to bless 
thee against the malice of the bad, and the bad is strengthened 
in his turn by those whom we have injured. — Book III. Chap. 2. 

LARGE PREPONDERANCE OF HOPE. 

If we were enabled minutely to examine the mental organi- 
zation of men who have risked great dangers, whether by the 
impulse of virtue or in the perpetration of crime, we should 
probably find therein a large preponderance of hope. By that 
preponderance we should account for those heroic designs 
which would annihilate prudence as a calculator, did not a san- 
guine confidence in the results produce special energies to 
achieve them, and thus create a prudence of its own, being, as 
it were, the self-conscious admeasurement of the diviner strength 
which justified the preterhuman spring. Nor less should we 
account by the same cause for that audacity which startles us in 
criminals on a colossal scale, which blinds them to the risks of 
detection, and often at the bar of justice, while the evidences 
that insure condemnation are thickening round them, with the 
persuasion of acquittal or escape. Hope is thus alike the sub- 
lime inspirer or the arch corrupter ; it is the foe of terror, the 
defier of consequences, the buoyant gamester which at every 
loss doubles the stakes, with a firm hand rattles the dice, and, in- 
voking ruin, cries within itself, " How shall I expend the gain ? " 

In the character, therefore, of a man like Pausanias, risking 
so much glory, daring so much peril, strong indeed must have 
been this sanguine motive power of human action. Nor is a 
large and active development of hope incompatible with a tem- 
perament habitually grave and often profoundly melancholy. 
For hope itself is often engendered by discontent. A vigorous 
nature keenly susceptible to joy, and deprived of the possession 
of the joy it yearns for by circumstances that surround it in the 
present, is goaded on by its impatience and dissatisfaction ; it 
hopes for the something it has not got, indifferent to the things 
it possesses, and saddened by the want which it experiences. 



PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 249 

And therefore it has been well said by philosophers that real 
happiness would exclude desire ; in other words not only at the 
gate of hell, but at the porch of heaven, he who entered would 
leave hope behind him. For perfect bliss is but supreme con- 
tent. And if content could say to itself, " But I hope for some- 
thing more," it would destroy its own existence. — Book III, 
Chap. 6. 

IN PRAISE OF THE ATHENIAN KNIGHTS. 
[Imitated from the Knights of Aristophanes, v. 565. etc.] 

Chant the fame of the Knights, or in war or in peace, 
Chant the darlings of Athens,* the bulwarks of Greece, 
Pressing foremost to glory, on wave and on shore. 
Where the steed has no footing, they win with the oar.f 

On their bosoms the battle splits, wasting its shock. 
If they charge like the whirlwind, they stand like the rock. 
Ha ! they count not the numbers, they scan not the ground ; 
When a foe comes in sight, on his lances they bound. 

Fails a foot in its speed ? heed it not. One and all f 
Spurn the earth that they spring from, and own not a fall. 
Oh, the darlings of Athens, the bulwarks of Greece, 
Wherefore envy the love-locks they perfume in peace! 

Wherefore scowl if they fondle a quail or a dove, 
Or inscribe on a myrtle the names that they love .'' 
Does Alcides not teach us how valor is mild ? 
Lo, at rest from his labors he pla5's with a child. 

When the slayer of Python has put dowTi his bow, 
By his lute and his love-locks Apollo we know. 
Fear'd, O rowers, those gallants their beauty to spoil 
When they sat on your benches, and shared in your toil ? 

When with laughter they row'd to your cry " Hippopai," 
" On, ye coursers of wood, for the palm wreath, away ! " 
Did those dainty youths ask you to store in your holds 
Or a cask from their crypt or a lamb from their folds ? 

No, they cried, " We are here both to fight and to fast. 
Place us first in the fight, at the board serve us last I 
Wheresoever is peril, we Knights lead the way, 
Wheresoever is hardship, we claim it as pay. 

Call us proud, O Athenians, we know it full well, 
And we give you the life we're too haughty to sell," 
Hail the stoutest in war, hail the mildest in peace. 
Hail the darlings of Athens, the bulwarks of Greece ! 

Book IV. Chap. 7. 

* Variation — 

" The adorers of Athens, the bulwarks of Greece." 
t Variation — 

" Keenest racers, to glory, on wave or on shore, 
By the rush of the steed or the stroke of the oar I " 
I Variation — 

" Falls there one ? never help him ! Our knights one and all. 



RICHELIEU: 

OR, THE CONSPIRACY. 

A PLAY IN FIVE ACTS. 



PERSONS OF THE DRAMA. 

Louis the Thirteenth. 

Gaston, Duke of Orleans (brother to Louis XIIL). 

Baradas (favorite of the King, first gentleman of the Chamber, premier, 
ecuyer, etc.). 

Cardinal Richelieu. 

The Chevalier de Mauprat. 

The Sieur de Beringhen (in attendance on the King, one of the conspir- 
ators).- 

Joseph (a Capuchin, Richelieu's confidant). 

HuGUET (an officer of Richelieu's household guard — a spy). 

Francois (first page to Richelieu). 

First Courtier. 

Captain of the Archers. 

First ) 

Second > Secretaries of State. 

Third ) 

Governor of the Bastile. 

Jailer. 

Courtiers, Pages, Conspirators, Officers, Soldiers, etc. 

Julie de Mortem ar (an orphan ward to Richelieu). 

Marion de Lorme (mistress to Orleans, but in Richelieu's pay). 



author's preface to RICHELIEU. 

The administration of Cardinal Richelieu, whom (despite all 
his darker qualities,) Voltaire and History justly consider the 
true architect of the French monarchy, and the great parent of 
French civilization, is characterized by features alike tragic and 
comic. A weak king — an ambitious favorite ; a despicable con- 
spiracy against the minister, nearly always associated with a 
dangerous treason against the State — these, with little variety of 
names and dates, constitute the eventful cycle through which, 
with a dazzling ease, and, an arrogant confidence, the great 
luminary fulfilled its destinies. Blent together, in startling con- 
trast, we see the grandest achievements and the pettiest agents ; 
— the spy — the mistress — the capuchin ; — the destruction of feu- 
dalism ; the humiliation of Austria ; — the dismemberment of 
Spain. 



RFC HE LIEU. 



251 



Richelieu himself is still what he was in his own day — a man 
of two characters. If, on the one hand, he is justly represented 
as inflexible and vindictive, crafty and unscrupulous ; so, on the 
other, it cannot be denied that he was placed in times in which 
the long impunity of every license required stern examples — that 
he was beset by perils and intrigues, which gave a certain ex- 
cuse to the subtlest inventions of self-defence — that his ambi- 
tion was inseparably connected with a passionate love for the 
glory of his country — and that, if he was her dictator, he was 
not less her benefactor. It has been fairly remarked by the 
most impartial historians, that he was no less generous to merit 
than severe to crime — that, in the various departments of the 
State, the Army, and the Church, he selected and distinguished 
the ablest aspirants — that the wars which he conducted were, 
for the most part, essential to the preservation of France and 
Europe itself, from the formidable encroachments of the Austri- 
an House — that, in spite of those wars, the people were not op- 
pressed with exorbitant imposts — and that he left the kingdom 
he had governed in a more flourishing and vigorous state than 
at any former period of the French history, or at the decease of 
Louis XIV. 

The cabals formed against the great statesman were not car- 
ried on by the patriotism of public virtue, nor the emulation of 
equal talent ; they were but court struggles, in which the most 
worthless agents had recourse to the most desperate means. — 
In each, as I have before observed, we see combined the two- 
fold attempt to murder the minister, and to betray the country. 
Such, then, are the agents, and such the designs, with which 
truth, in the Drama, as in History, requires us to contrast the 
celebrated Cardinal ; not disguising his foibles or his vices, but 
not unjust to the grander qualities (especially the love of coun- 
try) by which they were often dignified, and, at times, re- 
deemed. 

The historical drama is the concentration of historical events. 
In the attempt to place upon the stage the picture of an era, 
that license with dates and details, which Poetry permits, and 
which the highest authorities in the Drama of France herself, 
have sanctioned, has been, though not unsparingl}-, indulged. 
The conspiracy of the Due de Bouillon is, for instance, amal- 
gamated with the denouncement of the Day of Dupes ; and cir- 
cumstances connected with the treason of Cinq-Mars (whose brill- 
iant youth and gloomy catastrophe tend to subvert poetic and 
historic justice, by seducing us to forget his base ingratitude and 
his perfidious apostacy,) are identified with the fate of the earli- 
er favorite Baradas, whose sudden rise and as sudden f^ll 



252 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

passed into a proverb. I ought to add, that the noble romance 
of Cinq-Mars suggested one of the scenes in the fifth Act ; and 
that for the conception of some portion of the intrigue connected 
with De Mauprat and Julie, I am with great alterations of inci- 
dent, and considerable if not entire reconstruction of character, 
indebted to an early and admirable novel by the author of Fic- 
ciola. 

London, Marchy 1839. 

DIVINE AFFECTIONS. 

£>e Maup. " Who lonely in the midnight tent, 
Gazed on the watch-fires in the sleepless air. 
Nor chose one star amidst the clustering hosts 
To bless it in the name of some fair face 
Set in his spirit as the star in Heaven ? 
For our divine Affections, like the Spheres, 
Move ever, ever musical. 

Bar. You speak 
As one who fed on poetry. 

De Maiip. Why, man, 
The thoughts of lovers stir with poetry 
As leaves with summer wind. The heart that loves 
Dwells in an Eden, hearing angel-lutes, 
As Eve in the First Garden. 

Act I. 

LOVE HAS NO NEED OF WORDS. 

Love hath no need of words ; — nor less within 
That holiest temple — the heaven-builded soul — 
Breathes the recorded vow. — Base night, — false lover 
Were he, who barter'd all that brighten'd grief, 
Or sanctified despair, for life and gold. 

Act I. 

GODLIKE POWER. 

Oh, godlike Power ! Woe, Rapture, Penury, Wealth — 
Marriage and Death, for one infirm old man 
Through a great empire to dispense — withhold — 
As the will whispers ! And shall things, like motes 
That live in my daylight ; lackeys of court wages, 
Dwarf'd starvelings ; manikins upon whose shoulders 
The burthen of a province were a load 
More heavy than the globe on Atlas — cast 
Lots for my robes and sceptre ? France, I love thee ! 
All earth shall never pluck thee from my heart ! 



RICHELIEU. 253 

My mistress, France ; my wedded wife, sweet France ; 

Who shall proclaim divorce for thee and me ! Act I. 

THE PEN MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD. 

Rich, (who has seated hijnself as to write, lifts the pen). 

True THIS ! 
Beneath the rule of men entirely great 
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold . 
The arch enchanter's wand — itself a nothing ! 
By taking sorcery from the master hand 
To paralyze the Caesars, and to strike 
The loud earth breathless ! Take away the sword — 
States can be saved without it ! Act II. 

NO SUCH WORD AS FAIL. 

Rich. Fail — 

In the lexicon of youth, which Fate reserves 
For a bright manhood, there is no such word 



*t> 



K^—fail! Act II 

TWO THINGS IMMORTAL, FAME AND A PEOPLE. 

Beyond 
The map of France, my heart can travel not, 
But fills that limit to the farthest verge ; 
And while I live — Richelieu and France are one. 
We priests, to whom the Church forbids in youth 
The plighted one — to manhood's toil denies 
The soother helpmate — from our wither'd age 
Shuts the sweet blossoms of the second spring 
That smiles in the name Father — we are yet 
Not holier than humanity, and must 
Fulfil humanity's condition — Love ! 
Debarr'd the Actual, we but breathe a life 
To chill the marble of the Ideal — Thus, 
In the unseen and abstract Majesty, 
My France — my Country, I have bodied forth 
A thing to love. What are these robes of state, 
This pomp, this palace ? perishable baubles ! 
In this world two things only are immortal — 
Fame and a People ! Act II, 

Richelieu's soliloquy. 

Rich. " In silence, and at night the conscience feels 
That life should soar to nobler ends than Power : " 
So sayest thou, sage and sober moralist ! 



254 WIT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

But wert thou tried ? Sublime Philosophy, 

Thou art the Patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven, 

And bright with beck'ning angels, but alas ! 

We see thee like the Patriarch, but in dreams. 

By the first step — dull-slumbering on the earth. 

I am not happy ! With the Titan's lust 

I woo'd a goddess, and I clasp a cloud. 

When I am dust, my name shall, like a star, 

Shine through wan space, a glory — and a prophet 

Whereby pale seers shall from their aery towers 

Con all the ominous signs, benign or evil. 

That make the potent astrologue of kings. 

But shall the Future judge me by the ends 

That I have wrought, or by the dubious means 

Through which the stream of my renown hath run 

Into the many-voiced unfathomed Time ? 

Foul in its bed lie weeds — and heaps of slime. 

And with its waves — when sparkling in the sun. 

Oft times the secret rivulets that swell 

Its might of waters — blend the hues of blood. 

Yet are my sins not those of circumstance. 

That all-pervading atmosphere wherein 

Our spirits, like the unsteady lizzard, take 

The tints that color, and the food that nurtures ? 

O ! ye, whose hour-glass shifts its tranquil sands 

In the unvex'd silence of a student's cell ; 

Ye, whose untempted hearts have never toss'd 

Upon the dark and stormy tides where life 

Gives battle to the elements, — and man 

Wrestles with man for some slight plank, whose weight 

Will bear but one — while round the desperate wretch 

The hungry billows roar — and the fierce Fate 

Like some huge monster, dim-seen through the surf, 

Waits him who drops ; — ye safe and formal men, 

Who write the deeds and with unfeverish hand 

Weigh in nice scales the motives of the great, 

Ye cannot know what ye have never tried ! 

History preserves only the fleshless bones 

Of what we are — and by the mocking skull 

The would-be wise pretend to guess the features I 

Without the roundness and the glow of life 

How hideous is the skeleton ! Without 

The colorings and humanities that clothe 

Our errors, the anatomists of schools 

Can make our memory hideous ! 



RICHELIEU. 

I have outlived love 
O ! beautiful — all golden — gentle youth ! 
Making thy palace in the careless front 
And hopeful eye of man — ere yet the soul 
Hath lost the memories which (so Plato dream'd) 
Breath'd glory from the earlier star it dwelt in — 
O ! for one gale from thine exulting morning, 
Stirring amidst the roses, where of old 
Love shook the dew-drops from his glancing hair ! 
Could I recall the past — or had not set 
The prodigal treasures of the bankrupt soul 
In one slight bark upon the shoreless sea ! 
The yoked steer, after his day of toil, 
Forgets the goad and rests — to me alike 
Or day or night. Ambition has no rest! 
Shall I resign? — Who can resign himself? 
For custom is ourself ! As drink and food 
Become our bone and flesh — the aliments 
Nurturing our nobler part, the mind — thoughts, dreams, 
Passions and aims, in the revolving cycle 
Of the great alchemy — at length are made 
Our mind itself ! and yet the sweets of leisure — 
An honor'd home — far from these base intrigues — 
An eyrie on the heaven-kiss'd heights of wisdom — 
Speak to me, moralist ! I'll heed thy counsel. 



255 



Act III. 



RICHELIEU TO BARADAS. 

Bar. The country is the King ! 

Rich. . Ay, is it so ; 

Then wakes the power, which in the age of iron 
Burst forth to curb the great, and raise the low. 
Mark where she stands, around her form I draw 
The awful circle of our solemn Church ! 
Set but a foot within that holy ground. 
And on thy head — yea, though, it wore a crown — 
I launch the curse of Rome ! 



Act IV. 



Julie's appeal to the king. 
Julie. Stay, stay. You have a kind and princely heart, 
Tho' sometimes it is silent : you were born 
To power — it has not flushed you into madness. 
As it doth meaner men. Banish my husband — 
Dissolve our marriage — cast me to that grave 



256 WJT AND WISDOM OF BULWER. 

Of human ties, where hearts congeal to ice, 

In the dark convent's everlasting winter — 

(Surely eno' for justice — hate — revenge — ) 

But spare this life, thus lonely, scathed, and bloomless ; 

And when thou stand'st for judgment on thine own 

The deed shall shine beside thee as an angel. 

Rich. Ah, Joseph, 

See, my liege — see thro' plots and counterplots — 
Thro' gain and loss — thro' glory and disgrace — 
Along the plains where passionate Discord rears 
Eternal Babel — still the holy stream 
Of human happiness glides on ! 

Louis. And must we 

Thank for that also — our prime minister ? 

Rich. No — let us own it :— there is One above 
Sways the harmonious mystery of the world 
Ev'n better than prime ministers. 

Alas ! 
Our glories float between the earth and heaven 
Like clouds that seem pavilions of the sun, 
And are the playthings of the casual wind ; 
Still, like the cloud which drops on unseen crags 
The dews the wild flower feeds on, our ambition 
May from its airy height drop gladness down 
On unsuspected virtue ; and the flower 
May bless the cloud when it hath pass'd away. 



The End, 



^ 



INDEX. 



A. 

Absences, long, 8i. 
Accident, no such thing, 121. 
Action a Lethe, 179. 
Activity, power of, 123. 
Adrian, Emperor, anecdote, 60. 
Affection, loveliness of, no. 
Affections stronger than reasonings, 92. 
— , divine, immortal, 219, 252. 
Affinities of genius, 163. 
Age of the heart, 167. 
Alice, or the Mysteries, 86-93. 
All-good, attributes and essence, 149. 
Vmbition, intellectual, 79. 

— is but vanity, 91. 

— allows no private li/e^ 109. 
Americans are frank questioners, 168. 
Amine, description, 152. 

Amine's song, 150. 

Angels of love and knowledge, 74. 

Anthropophagite, the thoroughbred, 49. 

Apology, an, 63. 

Aram, Eugene, 102-112. 

Argument is useless, 148. 

Aristocratic commonwealth, 90. 

Arrogance proportionate to ignorance, 18. 

Art of medicine, 19. 

— and science, range, 17, 186, 214. 
— , the grander, seeks the true, 16. 
Artist, the true, 18. 

Arts no Soundness. Poem, 200. 
Assemblies, great, weariness, 129. 
Atonement, morality of, 92. 
Attachments, difference in, 128. 
Attraction, power of, 130. 
Augustus, character and fate, 157. 
Auldjo, Esq., John, dedicatory epistle to, 37. 
Australia, farewell to, 144. 
Author, devotion, system, temperament, 
26, 54. 

— and man, disconnection, 26, 85. 

— poor, 82. 

Authors, the world's debt, 83. 

17 



B. 

Baby, the, 185. 

Beau monde^ rules for delineating, 205. 

Beauty, exalting attribute, 54. 

— in woman, 129. 

— man, the, 78. 

— twice blessed, 87. 
• - women, 154. 

Beauty of the Mistress, etc. Poem, 18 
Belief as the wind, 226. 

— secret of exertion, 131. 
Bell, the sound of, 120. 
Benevolence and morality, 202. 
Betrothal, attesting, 226. 

Bezoni, darkness of his doctrine, 42. 
Bird, the true artist, 210. 
Birth of Love, 219. 
Bliss, the height of, 75. 
Boabdil, the last sigh of, 152, 
Bodies, our, component elements, 148. 
Bolingbroke compared with contempora- 
ries, 38. 
Books, real value, fidelity, 78, 80, 137. 
Borderer of two worlds, 142. 
Brave man, the, 225. 
Bridge of Sighs, the, 77. 
Brotherhoods, heroic, 195. 
Burdens, individual, 62. 
" But," 186. 



Calamities, two great divisions, 53. 
Calderon, Roderigo, execution, 240. 
Calderon the Courtier, 240, 241. 
Canons, each generation its own, 53. 
Career has no repose, 82. 
Caxtons, The, 135. 
Cell and convent, 177. 
Change for the brighter, 167. 
Character, right judgment, 51. 
— , our own, 201. 
Child mixing with adults, 209. 
Childhood separated from youth, 233. 



258 



INDEX. 



Children like to be useful, 63. 

— , character, quick insight, 117, 118. 

— , education, 136. 

Christian philosophy, heroism, 29. 

Circumstances make guilt, 99. 

Civil discords, banishment, 192. 

Civilization produces a middle class, go. 

Clifford, Paul, 94-100. 

Climbing, difficulty, 52. 

Coming race, development, 149. 

Common sense necessary, 201. 

Companionship, right, 161. 

Comprehension, lack of, 123. 

Concessions, individual, 57. 

Connubial garden, cultivation, 61. 

Conscience, supremacy, flight, 114, 117. 

Consciousness of endeavor, 176. 

Consolations of virtuous action, 176. 

Contemplation is serene, 24. 

Content, poem, 186. 

Country, the, professed attachment for, 

128. 
Courage, different forms, 119. 
Courtship, historj' of, 167. 
Crimes in vogue, 119. 
Criminals, great, lives of, 210. 
Critical places in life, 52. 
Crowd, ignorance of individuals, 206. 

D. 

Dead, repulsion for the, 115. 

— , the, praise of, 120. 

— , we can render no service, 124. 

— never die, 138. 

" Dear," treatise on the word, 60. 
Death divides not the wise, 15. 

— majestic and beauteous, 20. 

— vindicated, 180. 

— and crime, 211. 
Death-bed repentance, 58. 
Dedicatory Epistle, Zanoni, 13. 
Deity, speculations on, 25. 
Democratic Enthusiasm, 121. 
Design requires delay, 203. 
Desire to know, to be fine, ()(3, 97. 
Destiny, the chain of, 172. 

— fulfilment of, 213. 

— but a phantom, 237. 
Devereux, 37. 
Dewdrop. Poem, 247. 
Diana, — Luna — Hecate, 55. 
Discipline necessary- for freedom, 171. 
Disowned, The, 29-36. 
Disparities in life, 134. 



Dissimulation betrayed, 130. 

— often humble, 235. 

Divinity and soul, 23. 

Dogs, fidelity, 209. 

Double mystery of divinity and soul, 23. 

Doubt, giving way to, 210. 

Dreams — prophets, 141. 

Duties of the individual, 92. 

Duty difficult here, 18S, 230. 



Ear an index of character, 157. 

East wind, the, 56. 

Edith, death of, 230, 

Education is development, 72. 

Edward, King, suited to the age, 239. 

Egerton, death of, 73. 

Egotism, natural tendency to, 18. 

Electric chain of understanding, 50. 

Electricity, fluid resembling, 19. 

Eloquence, the truest, 168. 

Emotions suddenly narrowed, 170. 

Endurance the only philosophy, 89. 

Enemies and friends, 50. 

Enthusiasm necessary, contagious, 133, 

217. 
Enthusiasts of learning, 104. 
Errors of life, 108. 
Esteem as substitute for love 29. 

— for trifles, 204. 
Eternity, sense of, 19. 
Evermore, 74. 
Experience, benefits of, 44. 

— , open giver, stealthy thief, 78. 
Exclusion of the world, 175. 

F. 

Faces, human, charm of, 46. 
Fail, no such word, 253. 
Fairy's Reproach, The. Poem, 178. 
Faith the beauty of the soul, 17. 

— in self-sacrifice, 17. 

— and praj'er, 21. 

— and love, 124. 

Fallacy in morals, the great, 134. 
Fancy mistaken for love, 164. 
Fashion in manners, 200. 
Fate is a dead phantom, 70. 

— the servant of Providence, 160. 
Fates mock our resolves. 159. 
Fatherless, tlie care of God, 21. 
Fear increases love, 40. 
Feelings, our, 39. 

Feet of years, 180. 



INDEX. 



259 



Ferdinand, confessions, 151. 

Fibs in the nursery, 80. 

Fidelity to art, 162. 

Fine natures, 73. 

Flower-girl at the Crossing. Poem, 187. 

Fortune, admonitions of, 57. 

— , defence of, 142. 

Freedom, mockery in, 24. 

Frets and checks, 169. 

Friends desire our happiness, 34. 

— , number of, 56. 

Friendship almost a passion, 117. 

G. 

Gait and mien, 71. 
Gaming, vice of aristocracy, 127. 
Generous deeds, poetry of, 213. 
Genius of man, 18. 

— preparation of, honesty, 51, 84. 

— and woman, affinity, 55. 

— and Its influence, 73. 
— , no freedom for, 83. 
— , persons of, 156. 

— and feeling, distinction, 160. 

— , dearest prerogative, use, 178, 212. 

— , use of, 212. 

— , the, and the quack, 235. 

Gentleness of bearing and iron will, 234. 

Glaucus's avowal of Christianity, 221. 

Gloom, unvarying, 46. 

God vindicates the sanctity of Death, 20, 

— resources, 21. 

— the only agent, 195. 

— kinder than man can know, 237. 

— present alway everywhere, 237, 238. 
Godlike power, 252. 

Godolphin, 126. 

Gold, the real use of, 117. 

Good, its surpassing excellence, 41. 

Good-breedmg, 39. 

Good-nature foundation of good-breeding, 

39- 
Government, effect of belief, 147. 
Graves of the past, 180. 
Grief at different stages of life, 56. 
— , the channels of, 108. 
— , certain stages, 2io> 

— and solitude of the pure, 236. 
Guardian spirits, 49. 

Gy^ the, attachment of, 148. 

H. 

Happiness variable and indefinable, 66. 
— , the circle of, 105. 

— derived from affections, 228. 



Hardships of a single man, 200. 

Harold, 224-231. 

— , tomb of, 230. 

Heart, a good, is letter of credit, 48. 

— , reconciliation to loss of affection, 57. 

— , human, strangeness of, 69. 

— and head should match, 71. 

— , inclination to look upward, 105. 

— blown hither and thither, 155. 
— , noble, what it least dares, 234. 
— , domain of, 237. 

Hearth and altar, 145. 

Heaven, education for, 24. » 

— not a college for learned, 67. 

— where love is, 228. 

Help better than preaching, 116. 
Home, its tranquillity, 139. 
Honesty no right to be helpless, 122. 
Hope, a young man's, 57. 

— the avenue to faith, 62. 

— IS female, 168. 

— , large preponderance, 248. 

— anchor, 236. 

House, a man's, is his castle, 47. 

Household gods, 209. 

How to live, 52. 

Human nature a beautiful fabric, 40. 

— lives are like circles, 58. 

— action, true motion, 130. 
Humanity is mutual sympathy, 26. 
Humility and exaltation, 148. 
Hymn of Eros, The, 217. 

Hypocrisy, systematic, a difficult task, 41. 



Ideal, the, and faith, 16. 

— and the real, 18. 
— , the False, 22. 

— life, 153. 

— girl or man never realized, 167. 

— World, The. Poem, 182-184. 
Ideas, development of, 72. 

— suggested by trifles, 237. 
Idle reports, invention, 129. 

Ignorance prime cause of error and vice, 

34- 
Illness of the body, 84. 
Illness, severe, effects of, 124. 
Immortal things, two, 253. 
Immortality, instinct of, 27. 

— the intellectual necessity, 38. 

— of mental powers, 81. 
— , thought of, 112. 

In Praise of the Athenian Knights, 249. 



26o 



INDEX. 



Incense burned before the needle, 202, 
Indifference between husband and wife, 

133- 
Individual sovereignty, 24. 
Infants, education of, 80. 
Ingratitude, vice of men, 235, 
Insects become dangerous, 40. 
Instinct, none given in vain, 28. 
Intellect, happiest art of, 26. 

— sometimes fatigues, 24. 
— ,duty of, 75. 

— , exercise of, 81. 

— , consciousness of power, 82. 

Intellectual ambition, 79. 

Intensity alone produces a writer, 138. 

Inventions in dressing, 204. 

Irony an ungracious weapon, 170. 

Isle of Spirits. Poem, 243. 

J. 

Jealousy of strong affections, 92. 
Journey made pleasant, 177. 
Julie's appeal to the King, 255, 
Justice, early, scales of, 51. 

K. 

Kenelm Chillingly, 185-189. 

Kin, our estimate of their nature, 205. 

Kindness, effect of, 30. 

Kindred, love of, 39. 

Kings, the power of, 41. 

Knowledge antidote to ignorance, 34. 

— leads to heaven, 35. 
— , use of, 43. 

— not necessary to virtue, 67. 

— inseparable from toil, 115. 



Ladies, young, accomplishments, 127, 

Last Days of Pompeii, 216-224. 

Last of the Barons, 232-239. 

Law the apothecary, 96. 

— , its inconsistencies, 114. 

Learning, 141. 

Legislation often a destroyer, 98. 

Le Gerusalemme, 154. 

Leila, 150-152. 

— avowal of faith, 152. 

L'Estrange, description of, 68. 

Letters, atmosphere in, 25. 

Liberty, effect upon human life, 91. 

Library, plan for, 140. 



Life, the current of, 25. 

— our first era, 34. 

— , the two main tasks, 34. 

— , the glass of, 39. 

— , quaint puzzle, dark riddle, 48, 71. 

— , crises, great struggles, 78, 143. 

— , human, a circle, 84. 

— a delusion, 128. 

— , earthly and heavenly, assimilated, 147. 

— as an art, 155. 

— has always action, 175. 

— but a part of our career, 181. 

— a riddle, 197. 

— for aspiring and loving, 215. 
Light, struggle for the, 14. 
Literature as a calling, 70. 

— , agent of civilization, 89. 

Lives, two for each of us, 179. 

Living happily, how accomplished, 79. 

Locality, organ of, 233. 

Looking back to life of one loved, 177. 

Love sacrifices all, 21. 

— , twofold shape, 22, 

— the False, 22. 

— , selfish, increased by fear, 29, 40. 

— a division from the world, 40. 
— , the colors of, 55. 

— , true, course of, 57. 

— in its first shape, 88, 124, 175. 
— , disappointed, feelings of, 106. 

— in retirement, no. 

— ripens rapidly, 123. 

— not so necessary to woman, 130. 
— , the painting of, 132. 

— , courts the Pleasures. Poem, 133, 

— , what is it ? 155. 

— , reverential, for woman, 166. 

— ennobles, 169. 

— , new sentiment in, 222. 
— , what it should dread, 237. 

— knows no age, 236. 

— cannot sacrifice what makes love, 236. 

— the creative power, 245. 

— needs not words, 252. 
Lover of a lady of the mode, 38. 
Love's Quarrel. Poem, 187. 

— Excuse for Sadness, 195. 
Loving frequent, 217. 
Lucretia, 208-215. 

M. 

Maiden loving worthily, 234. 

— , true dower, 238. 

Malignity of a wrong world, 25. 



INDEX. 



261 



Maltravers, Ernest, 77-85. 
Man without faith, 27, 

— cogs dice for himself, 27. 

— , vain, characteristics of, 30. 

— his own sharper and bubble, 41. 

— in his art, 47. 

— and the Helpmate, 58, 186. 

— is but combination of elements, 73. 

— likened to a book, 69. 

— not a machine, 138, 
— , the good, 189. 

— sustained by his soul, 191. 
— , relation to society, 201. 

— driven to faith, 227. 
Mannerisms of writers, 80. 
Manners the chief attraction, 200. 

— a rare gift, 201. 

Man's prerogatives of royalty, 25, 

— right to his own secrets, 25. 

— heir, 48. 

Marriage, true, imprudent, 52, 74, 122. 

— , effect upon woman's accomplishments, 

68. 
Maxims for all professions, 70. 
Means mistaken for end, 129. 
Medicine, the art of, 19. 
Men, old, 48. 

— , young, addicted to Byron's poetry, 95. 
— , representatives of things, 119. 
— , diffident in love, 164. 
— , and women alike, vain, 168. 
Mercy in inflictions, 53. 
Microscope, revelations of, 120. 
Mind, necessity for action, 27, 149. 
— , a full, 137. 
— , and matter, i86. 
Minds, little, 121. 

— poetical, susceptible, 211. 
Ministers, real power, 206. 
Minorities work great changes, 156. 
Mirror of the Soul, 18. 
Misfortunes destroy one another, 98. 
Mockery in Freedom, 24. 

Moral World, its mystery, 118. 
Morality in dress, two codes, 204. 
Mordaunt, Algernon, character, 29. 
— , the death of, 35. 
Mother's love, holiness in, 117. 

— song, 242. 

Motive, strong ruling, necessity of, 166. 
Music speaks through the human voice, 155 
— , many kinds, 243. 
Musical stupidities, 131. 
Muza's Serenade, 151. 



My Novel, 59. 

Mystic law of desire, 227. 

N. 
Names outliving the grave, 196. 
Napoleon III., 157. 
Nature, our, workings of, 128. 
— ^, its quiet like worship, 132, 
— , akin, influence, 170. 
— , two voices, 171. 
— , convulsions of, 180. 
Nature's gifts, 141. 
Neatness is of two kinds, 157. 
Night and Love. Poem, 79. 

— and Morning, 113-125. 
Noble, whatever is, its lot, 124. 
Nothing immoral permanently popular, 

— is superficial, 204. 

Novel, aim of every good one, 204. 
Nydia's Love-song, 219. 

O. 

Old people, the grace of kindness, 30. 

— age, 88. 

Operatives, appeals to, 64. 
" Ought to be," 188. 



Parisian, a thorough, 169. 

— Society, 172. 
Parisian, The, 153. 
Parting, beware of, 45. 
Parvenu and exquisite, 72. 
Passions, the, life of, 104. 
— , dominant, of life, 188. 

— , and parties, mediator between, 191. 

— noblest, are most selfish, 206. 
Past influencing the present, 168. 
— , a guide for the future, 192. 
Patience the courage of the conqueror, 69. 

— necessary, 215. 

— a good palfrey, 234. 
Patrician, true boast of, 193. 
Patriotism and revenge, 190. 

— and love, 190. 

Pausanias, the Spartan, 242-249. 

Peace, 218. 

Peasant fond of home, 60. 

Pelham, 199-207. 

Pen mightier than the sword, 253. 

Penal institutions, errors in, 94. 

People born out of time, 158. 

Perception of the beautiful, 53. 

Periodicals, important office, 80. 



262 



INDEX, 



Perjured chiefs, 238. 

Persians, creed of, 248. 

Persons, natural, seem affected, 188. 

Peruvian fable, 39. 

Peter the Great, character, 41. 

Petrarch, era of, 197. 

Philosophers to each other, 205. 

Philosophy, real, 15. 

— , Christian, heroism of, 29. 

Physical power, use and abuse, 56. 

Physician, true, requirements of, 23. 

— , ceremonious fee, 24. 

Picture of human life, a, iii. 

Pilgrims of the Rhine, 173. 

Pity and admiration imply heroic object, 

73- 
Poet is always a king, 65. 
— , creative faculty, 69. 

— needs many gifts, 212. 
Poetic taste, indulgence of, 64. 
Poetry, gift of, 149. 

— , influence, 159. 
Political science, 203. 
Politician without belief, 165. 
Politicians of different ages. 38. 
Politics and policy, distinction, 41. 
Pompeii, Last Days of, 216-223. 
Pompeii, story of, 222. 
Poverty better than soiled honor, 46. 
Power of faith, 52. 

— to do good, 214. 
Practice and precept, 16. 
Praise, a little, 188. 
Praising, gift of, 48. 

Prayer, the child's power of, 23. 

— and wrorship intuitive, 24. 

— of Githa, 229. 
Prejudice never salutary, 35. 
Pretence, the lesson of, 34. 
Principles born from weakness, 43. 
Private life, blissfulness of, 74. 
Progress involves sacrifice, 48. 
Prosperity does not spoil the heart, 235. 
Providence atoning for fortune, 144. 
Public man, need of, 53. 

— , the, a damnable gossip, 83. 

— opinion, tyranny, 90, 132, 164. 

R. 

Rank, bar lasting to distinction, 107. 

— and pretence, relations, 203. 
Rarity of perfect heart-union, 72. 
Reading, the kind for the sorrowing, 140. 
Reasoning from the heart, 55. 



Redemption possible, 98. 

Reflection, powers of, 233. 
Reform and the reformer, 193. 
Regret for childhood, 221. 
Relenting of fine natures, 58. 
Religion a bridge, 24. 

— and priestcraft, differences, 39. 

— stronger-winged poetry, 84. 

— of freedom, 87. 

— in love, 108. 

Repent the idlest word, 96. 

Repose is oblivion, 82. 

— , the soul's need, 24. 

Respectability frequently selfishness, 114. 

Restless principle, demand of, 142. 

Retrospect, disappointment in, 33. 

Reverie, harmful effect, 64. 

Revolution, French tendency, 157. 

Revolutions cannot be warded off, 192. 

Richelieu, 250-256. 

— , author's preface, 250. . 

— soliloquy, 253. 

— to Baradas, 255. 
Riddle of life, the, 71. 
Rienzi, 190-198. 

Right in the eyes of the world, 116. 
Roman Hymn of Liberty, 193. 
Romance, 167. 
Ruin of humanity, 209. 



Sacrifice of the beloved, 160. 

Sanctity of the sick-room, 23. 

Soul and Hereafter, 25. 

Sayings, fine, 39. 

Scandal, the greed for, 25. 

Science leads to heaven, 17. 

— as a distraction, 55. 

Seas of human life, 144. 

Seasons, divisions of, 211. 

Selection, no prescribing, 163. 

Self-deception, 27. 

Self-satisfaction, 202. 

Sentiment, exaggeration of, 108. 

— , matters of, important, 165. 

— , true, 195. 

Shakespeare as interpreter of wroman, 55. 

— , union of reason and poetry, 161. 

— , and other masters, difference, 196. 

Ships for rough weather, 57. 

Silence, 141. 

Silent things, three, 228. 

Skepticisms of the Encyclopedie, 143, 

Sleep of the fatherless boy, 116. 



INDEX. 



263 



Sleep of innocence, 237. 
— , forsakes, when, 106. 
Smoke and flame, 226. 
Society, portrayal of, 207, 
Song of Glaucus, 220. 
Soul, evidence of, 26. 

— enamored of soul, 218. 

— really grand, 229. 

— development, 245. 

Spirit that serves the wizard, 211. 

— , two wings of, 212. 

Stars ruling career of mortals, 226. 

Statesman, world of, 160. 

Stature measured by soul, 235. 

Stern and meek natures, attraction, 226. 

Stones thrown into the water, 214. 

Strange Story, A, 23-28. 

Streets have two sides, 49. 

Strength, consciousness of, 39. 

— , and gentleness, 1B7. 

Striving for laudable objects, 132. 

Sympathy, the humanity of, 63. 

— and love, 161. 

— in choice, 170. 

— mutual, of bold, 227. 
Sun as a servant, 139. 
Superstition native to border-land, 230. 
Suppression, a task of life, 34. 
Surgeon and poet, good, 186. 



T. 



Teacher, none like Love, 125. 

— the best, 187. 

Tears are not for the dead, 33. 

— akin to prayers, 47. 
— , the vale of, 185. 
Temper and disposition, 50. 
Tempers untouched by vicissitudes, iii. 
Tendency to believe, 15. 

Thames, the bridge, 109. 
The Coming Race, 146-149. 
Theatrical representation, 127. 
Thought presides over all things, 70, 
— , two schools, 186. 
Thought, the portal of sin, 215. 
Time, sepulchre is his temple, 122. 
Training, importance of, 72. 
Tree, the crooked, simile, 14. 
— , fair and stately, 158. 
Trees which shelter, 57. 
Trevylyan's song, 174. 
Tribunes, last of, 197. 
q-riumph over weakness, ixi. 



True to duty, 212. 

Truth vital necessity, hard path, 75-128. 

Truths disagreeable, in fragments, 49, 95. 

U. 

Uncle Jack, description of, 138. 

Union of two hearts, 72. 

Units in sum of human existence, 180. 

Universal suffrage is Democracy, 89. 

Unrest, cause, 159. 

Unseen World, Fictions of, 174. 

Usefulness, n8. 

V. 

Vain persons, 172. 

Valor and fortune, 193. 

Vanity in others, our dislike, 206. 

" Victory or Westminister Abbey," 189. 

Virtue is God's empire, i\ 

— , resources within itself, 33. 

Vril-ya, religions and beliefs, 146. 

W. 

Warwick, death of, 238, 

Watch and pray, 217. 

Weapon that conquers fate, 143. 

Wedding bells, 122. 

What it is to die, 14. 

What will He do with It, 45-58. 

Wife, the name of, 170. 

Will, man's, power of, 27. 

Wings, two, raise to summit of truth, 214. 

Wisdom contemplating mankind, 15. 

— , through joy or grief, 27. 

Woman a changeable being, 68. 

— who consoles, who exalts, 75, 76. 

— of mind 166. 

— true ambition. 235. 

— yearns to soothe, 243. 

— weakness and greatness, 196. 

— fancy and man's genius. 234. 
Women, their tender and anxious love, 40. 
— , prisoners and despots of society, 131. 
— , as letter-writers, 164. 

Words common property, 21. 
World the Thought of God, 69. 
World's last lesson, 129. 
Wrecks, 15. 

Writer, a good, ambition, requirements, 
38, 204. 

— of romances, 138. 
— , the young, 165. 



264 



INDEX. 



Writing cold interpreter of thought, 38. 
— and publishing, 138. 

Y. 

Yearnings for divine love, 171. 



" Young man " envied title, 137. 
Youth to youth, love of, 236. 

Z. 

Zanoni, 13. 

Zanoni, Dedicatory Epistle, 13. 



I 

I 



